Larger Than Lyfe (24 page)

“Cut the bullshit,” Mars snapped darkly. “Let’s get this thing over with.”

“You say that like it’s the end of the world.”

“The thought of having a child with you IS like the end of the world.”

“You son of a bitch!” Portia said.

Mars didn’t respond. He held the passenger door of his Mercedes open and Portia slid angrily into the car.

Mars sat in the reception area of the practically empty doctor’s office and sent text messages to Keshari and his secretary on his BlackBerry while Portia went to provide the nurse with blood and urine samples. Mars was trying to find the time in his busy schedule to fly to Miami for a couple of days while Keshari was there for the Miami auditions of her nationwide talent search. He prayed that he was not about to receive any unfortunate news that he was going to have to break to her when he flew out to see her. He hadn’t told her a thing about Portia’s supposed “predicament” and t
heir doctor’s appointment that morning.

Portia returned to the reception area shortly after providing the blood and urine samples to the nurse. She and Mars were told that it would take approximately half an hour before the doctor would provide them with the results.

“There’s a Starbucks right down the street,” the nurse said to them. “You could go and get yourselves a latté and your results would be ready by the time you get back.”

Portia grinned with delight. “That sounds like a terrific idea. Come on, sweetie, let’s go.”

“Are you out of your mind, woman?” Mars snapped. “I don’t want any coffee. We’ll wait…here.”

Portia rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and shook her head mildly at the nurse as if Mars was merely an expectant father with a strong case of the jitters. She began thumbing through a
Modern Parenthood
magazine.

There had to have been warning signs all over the place over the course of the years that the two of them had dated to indicate to him how delusional and unstable this woman clearly was and Mars had been too busy watching the perfect switch of her ass to get the memo.

Mars’s BlackBerry beeped, signaling an incoming text message:

“Hope you’ve managed 2 get time off for trip. I’ll try & see you later tonite. Luv U. –K”

Portia glanced over and skimmed the message display on Mars’s BlackBerry and saw the private, little smile on his face.

“How dare you sit here and exchange text messages like a fifteen-year-old with that bitch while we wait for the status of our unborn child!” Portia snarled under her breath.

“Woman…PUH-LEEZE,” Mars said loud enough for the nurse at the reception area’s check-in window to look up from her paperwork at the two of them.

“The doctor will see you now,” the nurse said to them a few moments later.

She escorted them down the hallway to Dr. Kardashian’s office, where the forty-something redhead, in a white lab coat and a sizeable Asscher-cut wedding ring, sat at her desk overlooking Santa Monica Boulevard near the Third Street Promenade. She looked from Mars to Portia and smiled warmly. The smile made Mars’s heart drop. He thought that it was a smile of congratulations. Portia clearly thought the same thing because she smiled jubilantly back at Dr. Kardashian as if she was the happiest woman in the world.

“The good news,” Dr. Kardashian said, “is that you are a very healthy woman, Portia, and can certainly have many babies if you so choose. The unfortunate news is that you are not pregnant now.”

“There must be some mistake,” Portia said. “I took one of those home pregnancy tests three times and they all came back positive.”

“Sometimes home pregnancy tests result in false positives,” Dr. Kardashian responded. “A variety of factors cause these tests to fail from time to time. That’s why it is always advisable to immediately visit your gynecologist to confirm things after taking a home pregnancy test.”

“I don’t…I don’t understand,” Portia stammered in dismay. “Perhaps we should complete the testing again.”

Dr. Kardashian shook her head sympathetically. “Portia…you’re healthy. If you want to have a child, you simply have to keep trying. There is nothing in your medical history that would act as an obstacle to your getting pregnant. Furthermore, the fun part is in trying to conceive.”

She smiled at Portia and Mars as if she were offering consolation to a happy, sexually healthy couple. For the first time, Mars smiled back at her.

“I thank you for your time, Dr. Kardashian,” he said, getting up. “Have a good day.”

He took Portia by the arm and quickly ushered her out of the row of medical offices and out to the car. When he pulled up at Portia’s loft again, he shut off the engine. Portia sat, completely crestfallen, as if the news from Dr. Kardashian was still a complete shock to her.

“You knew damned fucking well that you were not pregnant,” Mars said evenly. “I want you to LEAVE…ME…ALONE. Don’t call, don’t write, don’t send e-mail, don’t text me, don’t show up at my home or workplace ever again. It’s OVER! Leave me the FUCK alone. Get some counseling. Get a life. But, if you ever bother me again, I assure you that I will get a restraining order. Now…kindly…get the fuck out of my car without making a scene.”

Portia’s expression was stoic as she stepped from Mars’s Mercedes and headed through the courtyard to her loft. Mars sped away without looking back.

Keshari looked at the display screen of her vibrating BlackBerry to see who was calling.

“Marcus, what’s up?” she said, answering her phone.

“We need to get together. We have quite a bit to talk about.”

Keshari rolled her eyes. Why did it seem, lately, like Marcus was always talking within some kind of damned riddle?

“Marcus, surely you’ve caught it in the media. I’m extremely busy right now. I’m getting ready to fly to Miami as we speak for the fourth leg of auditions in my nationwide talent search project.”

“Honey, you got some issues far more pressing than that right here in Los Angeles. Now, would you like me to come to you or are you going to come to me?”

“Are you issuing me orders now, Marcus?” Keshari questioned with annoyance.

“I’ll see you at my house at five…and I really don’t want to have to come looking for you.”

Marcus’s end of the line clicked off as he ended his call. Keshari was furious. She picked up the phone and rang her assistant.

“T., I need you to push my flight back until ten tonight.”

“Keshari, you’re set at the airport to fly out of here at five. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get them to push it back on such short notice. We’re about to go into a staff meeting.”

“T., that’s why I’ve got my own goddamned plane…so that I can switch up my flight times whenever the fuck I need to! And
I’ve got an assistant to make sure that it happens without a single detail being missed!” She took a deep breath so that she did not become completely abusive with Terrence. “T., please push my flight back until eight tonight. Send me a text confirming the change as soon as it’s done. We’ll let the execs flying with me know in the staff meeting that the flight has to be pushed back.”

“Not a problem,” Terrence responded and clicked off the extension.

Larger Than Lyfe’s “Nationwide Search for a Star” auditions were about to hit Miami. Before the crew loaded onto the record label’s private jet and flew into Miami that evening, Keshari called a meeting to review the numbers for the project’s budget. She’d been particularly distracted ever since the unexpected visit from the DEA agent. She became even more agitated after the phone call from Marcus Means. She’d been on the phone with her security firm for the greater part of the morning. She’d tripled her security team and hired additional security specialists who were forme
r military intelligence officers, possessing training in stealth, poisons, and explosives. When Terrence saw the figures for the cost of the upgraded security services, he knew that something serious had to be up.

To date, no one had dared discuss the visit from the DEA agent. Not a word went around in LTL’s offices or anywhere else, for that matter. The only person with whom Terrence even dared discuss Keshari’s peculiar, current activities was his partner, but he felt certain that details would start getting leaked to the media if Keshari continued to behave in the bizarre way that she had been over the last few days in the presence of her staff. The
woman was in rare form and Terrence knew that the press and the public would eat it up if they heard about it. “
The Ice Princess of Hip-Hop Finally Has a Chink in Her Armor
,” the headlines would blaze.

“Okay, people,” Andre DeJesus said, “I’ve reviewed several set design layouts for the grand finale show. My group and I have selected the top three and need your final approval, Keshari, on the one we’re gonna go with.”

He placed the three design boards in front of her and she flipped through them absently.

“We all know that Misha Tierney was contracted to put together the gift bags for the panel of judges and the top ten finalists. With Misha’s connections to top-name vendors through her event planning firm, she’s already several items gratis or at less than wholesale. We’ve got Tiffany & Co., Motorola, Carol’s Daughter and Canyon Ranch Spa, just to name a few. These major names are glad to have their names connected to the event. The gift bags are each to have an estimated value of twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Damn!” Marvin Shabazz said, impressed. “That tops the gift bags for the Grammy Awards.”

“Current advertising continues to maintain massive public, media, and industry interest in the project,” Andre continued, “but we’ve got to sit down and streamline our marketing and publicity strategies after Miami so that we don’t lose momentum and public interest as we get closer to the finale show. As we all know, this project has a pretty wide timeframe and the public has a short attention span. The last thing we want is even a slight dip in public interest.”

“Let’s talk about the budget,” Keshari said.

Andre paused and took a deep breath. For the first time since the start of the staff meeting, his excitement over the plans and
accomplished feats for his multimillion-dollar brainchild faltered.

“We are currently seventy-five thousand dollars over budget,” Andre said.

Everything happened extremely fast after that. Keshari’s laptop went flying for a definite crash into the wall. Her latté went all over the table and dripped onto the Berber carpet. Executives went hopping away from the table, practically running over each other, as if gunfire had erupted.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!” Keshari looked at Andre and her two accountants as if they’d been caught embezzling the record label’s funds.

No one rushed to provide a response.

“I pretty much give free rein to my executives to make solid decisions for the good of this company. These are not new rules around here. They have always existed.

“I distinctly told you in our very first meeting and I reminded you in every subsequent meeting that ‘when it even smells like we’re about to go over budget, I better know about it.’ Do you remember that, Andre?”

He nodded.

“Do you remember that, Nicolai?”

“Of course, Keshari,” Nicolai Livingston replied.

“Very well, then. Here’s what’s gonna happen. There is a massive figure already allocated to this project…and not a penny more will be put into this project. You guys are gonna have to put your heads together and get us back within budget…NOT ONE PENNY OVER…and you have until we return to L.A. from Miami to get it done,” Keshari said.

“Keshari, I’m working as one of the judges at the Miami auditions. There is absolutely no way that I’ll be able to do that as well as re-work these budget numbers. It’s impossible,” Andre said.

“You have never let me down before, Andre, and I know that you won’t now. If this problem is not resolved by the time we return from Miami, there will be some terminations of employment.”

Andre looked around the room at the other still-startled executives for support.

“I’ll help you in any way that I can,” Sharonda Richards offered.

The other executives nodded in agreement.

“Alright, what else is on the agenda? What else do I need to know about?” Keshari asked in exasperation.