Bumped - Completed Novel

Bumped - Chapter Four

At work, I valeted my car and headed up to my office. I bumped into my boss Melanie, she was VP of Publicity, on my way up. We rode the elevator together. She was a dead ringer for Star Jones (pre-weight loss). She was carrying her little ankle nipper of a dog in a Louis Vuitton monogram pooch pouch. A small little head, no bigger than a golf ball, with a white strand of hair swept up in a ribbon poked out of the little zippered opening.

Melanie eyed me before she asked, "Everything okay?"

I shifted from one foot to the other, realizing how I must look wearing a pair of my jeans, Coach sneakers and a hot pink t-shirt. My hair was hastily thrown back in a ponytail and a mad dash of lipstick streaked across my lips. Top it all off with a big knot on my head... It was a far cry from my usual photo shoot ready ensembles.

"I'm fine. I slipped in the shower," I said with a little too much pep in my voice, "and look at this little guy, you brought little ummm, Pippy to the office."

"It's Pepper.  His nanny had an emergency and couldn't come in.  Water main break or something...and mommy couldn't let her little babsy-wabsy stay home all by his wittle self."

I sighed and forced a smile. 

"So kiddo, let's go over your publicity plan for Cameron after lunch, 'kay?  I have a meeting with Nikki at 3 p.m. and want to be able to update her on everything," she said.

"Sure, 1:30 work for you?"

"That's fine. Thanks kiddo." She started down the hallway and then came back. "If you want to talk about anything, let me know."  She eyed my forehead again before taking off to her office.

Kiddo. She drove me crazy with that, we weren't more than five or six years apart in age, but to hear her talk, I was the incompetent baby sister tagging along to the office. I couldn't even sweat it today.

I took a short cut through the maze of cubicles that made up the support staff in the center of the floor. Every cubicle was its own island of drama. Phones ringing punctuated by voices yelling from inside an office looking for something that hadn't been done. A variety of music jumped out at me from the open doorways reminding me of spinning the dial on the radio. Wu Tang Clan. Usher. Patti LaBelle. It was the typical chaos of Savage Rhythms. Usually it was a source of energy for me but this morning it was plucking the one fragile nerve I had left. I couldn't wait to get to the quiet sanctuary of my office.

The first thing I saw when I opened the door was a pair of Raf Simons Crocodile Pocket sneakers resting on my coffee table. They belonged to the long outstretched legs of Cameron. A tattooed bicep peeked out from his white short-sleeved shirt. He was relaxing on my leather couch like he owned it and talking on not one, but two, cell phones.

"Yeah, so why don't you text me those pics. I need to see what you look like, know what I'm saying?" he said into one phone, his mouth twisted up in a smirk.  "S'up cutie?" he asked when he finally noticed me. 

"Oh no, I don't care how much your sneakers cost but you better get them off my furniture. You are not home," I told him while walking over to my desk and dropping my Gucci tote bag on the floor.

The first record label I worked at was dominated by hip-hop so I was used to claiming my respect from the jump.  As a female in the business, it was eat or be eaten alive.  You almost had to de-feminize yourself in order to dodge the bullet of being placed in the category of hoes and bitches that seemed to encompass the spectrum of all women except their mommas, in most cases anyway.  That's why I admired Nikki so much.  She made it in a man's world playing by a woman's rules.  Everybody who was anybody agreed that she was bad, in a scary, very threatening way.