Diva Princess (Laurmani / DC3)

Chapter 21

Normani, Jarvis, and I went shopping at Whole Foods. I don't know why, but it was tough to get this kid to eat organic cereal. All he wanted was sugary cereals doused with artificial food coloring. My last hope was that he would eat the organic version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

"I started filling out the foster parent paperwork," Normani stated while she was pushing our shopping cart.

"Do you need me to sign anything?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'll give it to you once I'm done. I already filled all your information in," Normani answered in a somber voice.

"You sound down about something," I pointed out.

Normani stopped the cart in the middle of the aisle. "As you know, his placement with us was only temporary, and the approval process for becoming foster parents can take almost a year. Child Protective Services called the other day and told me that they were trying to find a placement for Jarvis with foster parents who have already gone through the process."

Jarvis, who was sitting in the child seat in the cart, looked up inquisitively at Normani.

I whispered in Normani's ear, "I don't think we should be talking about this in front of him."

After checking out, we wheeled Jarvis and our groceries out to Normani's SUV. Normani loaded the groceries in the back while I took Jarvis out of the cart. I opened the door to put the toddler in the backseat, but something was wrong.

"Where's the car seat?" I asked.

Normani peaked around from the back of the truck. "What are you talking about? He was in it when we rode here."

"Dude, it's not here," I exclaimed.

Normani made sure the cart wouldn't roll off and walked around to peer inside the vehicle. She gasped, "Someone must have stolen it and Coco's too. I could have sworn I locked the doors."

"Who in the fuck would steal a car seat?" I questioned rhetorically.

Normani smacked me on the back. "Watch your mouth around the kid."

"I'll just ride in the back with him. We're going to have to stop at Toys R Us or something to get him another one. Dammit! That shit was expensive," I complained.

"Lauren!" Normani scolded me.

I placed Jarvis in the back and helped Normani load the rest of the groceries. Once that was done, Normani got in the driver's seat, and I sat in the back doing the best I could to make the seatbelt comfortable for Jarvis. As Normani was about to start the car, I noticed something was off.

"Babe, stop," I directed.

"Why? What's going on?" Normani questioned.

"I don't think this is your Range Rover," I said.

"What? What are the chances that someone else in this city would have a pink Range Rover and would be shopping at Whole Foods the same time as us?" Normani argued.

I told her, "There is short, tan dog hair back here. Your dog is dark brown and has long hair. I don't even think we parked on this side of the parking lot."

Before Normani could get a word out, we saw a blonde woman twitching her way toward the SUV. She was carrying a designer bag with a teacup Chihuahua poking its head out. I swear, she was Normani's white doppelganger, and she did not look happy.

My girlfriend tried to step out of the vehicle, but the blonde woman was already screaming. "Help! Help! Some hood rat is trying to steal my car."

"Bitch, what did you just call me?" Normani yelled.

I hopped out of the vehicle. "Wait. This is all a misunderstanding." Then, I saw another pink Range Rover on the other side of the parking lot. "We thought this was our SUV, but it looks like we parked over there." I pointed across the lot, and the woman turned around to see what I was seeing.

"Oh, well. Can you hurry up and get out? I need to go," the blonde woman demanded.

I rolled my eyes and reached into the backseat to unbuckle Jarvis. Normani got a cart and quickly loaded our groceries inside so that we could transport them to our vehicle. The blonde lady was tapping her foot on the pavement and kept checking her watch. The woman was such a bitch, neither Normani nor I bothered to apologize to her when we walked off.

"You won't believe what happened!" Normani shouted to Dinah as we walked in the door of our house. But, we both froze when we saw who was sitting on our couch. "Why is she here?" Normani questioned Dinah angrily.

Ally promptly stood up to explain herself. "I came here to apologize. I know why your group was eliminated."

"Let me guess," Normani responded, "Camila told the show's producers about our relationship."

Ally held her head down. "It wasn't my idea. I told her it was wrong, but she was hell-bent on getting your act off the show."

I broke in, "Appreciate the apology. Now, if you don't mind, we have groceries to put away. I'm sure you have an episode to film."

"Actually, I don't," Ally admitted. "I dropped out. I couldn't put up with Camila being an attention-seeker. And, you know what? It's a good thing I did drop out because, shortly after, I heard she was already in talks with a record company exec who was sitting in on the auditions. She had plans to dump me and go solo."

"Was she going to drop out of the competition?" Normani inquired.

"Do you remember that guy Mario Vazquez from American Idol? He dropped out of the competition to sign a record deal. That was Camila's plan," Ally explained.

Few more words were exchanged, and Ally went on her way. Dinah, Normani, and I sat around in an awkward silence while Jarvis played with his toys until Normani jumped up remembering that there were cold foods that needed to be refrigerated. While Normani talked about being a little annoyed that her evil ex-girlfriend's music career might be taking off and hers didn't even get a chance to begin, I knew she no longer really cared. Her biggest concern, at the moment, was what was going to happen to the little boy playing in the living room.