Chapter 16
16
Angelo bounces the tiny red ball, scoops up three jacks, but fails to catch it before it connects with the floor. It’s clear he’s distracted, but I’ll take the advantage. Giggling to myself, I prep for my turn while he mouths an expletive.
“Roxy and her team got the memo,” Angelo says, switching back into manager mode. “She mentions any word that comes close to rhyming with Elliot or so much as alludes to that IG post, and we’re out of here.”
Half listening and fully focused on the game, I’m successful this go-round and score three jacks for my stash. “Roger that,” I say, punching the air in victory.
We’re killing time in the greenroom of New York’s hip-hop and R&B radio station Power 103 before I go on the viral morning show with legendary host DJ Roxy Dee. By now, I know Angelo well enough to know he means business about Elliot being off-limits. I’m sure he’s studied a map of the building and pinpointed the exact location of the signal booster. Wouldn’t put smashing the transmitter past him, either, if Roxy steps out of bounds with her line of questioning.
It’s my first interview since the video premiered at midnight eastern, and ever since then I’ve been steadily trending on pretty much every social platform right next to Miles, and unfortunately Elliot too. Apparently, he wanted in on the fun and games and decided to announce our divorce on Instagram of all places.
Angelo scoops up an impressive four jacks this time around. “But you know what this means, right?” he asks, voice taking on a more serious note. “To make this worth her while, she’s gonna go hard in the paint on the video. Try to trip you up and get a viral sound bite on you and Miles.”
At the mention of his name, I completely fumble my turn and drop the few jacks I’d managed to grasp. “Thanks, Lo. I think I can handle it,” I say, sounding a bit sharper than I intend to.
“I know you can.” Angelo sighs, before bouncing the ball and clearing the remaining jacks in one fell swoop. “I’m just saying…stay woke.” He winks at me, and I playfully roll my eyes.
“Good morning, good morning to all my beautiful people out there listening! You know me, I’m DJ Roxy Dee. It is a sunny Tuesday morning here in New York City, and I am pleased, as always, to be back rockin’ the airwaves for you on your morning commutes. But before we get to spinning those hits, we have a very special guest with us today…one of our favorites here at Power 103. So, without further ado, joining us after the worldwide premiere of her latest music video for the Billboard top one hundred hit ‘No Ordinary Love’—which broke the internet, might I add—is the pop, soul, R&B princess herself, Miss Ella Simone. Yes, everybody in the studio, please give her a warm welcome!”
“Thank you. Thank you all so much,” I say, adjusting my headset. “You know I always love coming to visit you guys here at Power 103. This really feels like coming home to me.”
“You know it’s all love. But, girl …” The word lands with a thud. Like a full declarative sentence, and one that you know will be followed by either an interrogation or an accusation. “We wouldn’t be family if I didn’t come at you direct. Now, you got some ’splainin’ to dooooo!”
Inwardly, I roll my neck and shoulders. So it’s like that? Already? I think to myself. Angelo was not exaggerating. But like the consummate professional I endeavor to be, I plaster on a trained smile. The one that says I’m unbothered. No matter what question Roxy’s got locked and loaded, she won’t see me sweat.
Besides, I know where the door is.
When Laurel sent over her final cut, I knew I was in for some mess—even before the frantic calls from my team started to roll in. There were even questions of scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch. Surprising myself, I reminded them that despite my own expressed doubts, casting Miles in the video happened at their urging and that now perhaps it was their turn to lean in to the public’s response.
For me, something about that day spent traipsing around the city loosened a knot I didn’t know existed inside of me. Something about spinning around in that fake rain, kissing a man who is not my ex with reckless abandon—cameras be damned. By the end of the shoot, I felt the opposite of afraid. I wanted more. Headlines be damned too.
Snapping back to the present, I reach into my bag of tricks for disarming the media and select flattery. “Oooh, look at you holding out that note like a soprano, I see you, girl!” I playfully tease Roxy in response to her thinly veiled ambush.
“Coming from you,” Roxy says, her eyes narrowed, having likely clocked my game, “I’ll take the compliment. But it won’t distract me! I have a one-track mind this morning because I, like five million other people, have streamed a little video for a little ditty called ‘No Ordinary Love’ about five times since it dropped at midnight and, miss ma’am, you have given the people some food for thought! So, let’s get into it.”
“Okay. Okay. But first, I need to issue a disclaimer,” I interject, hoping to redirect the locomotive before it runs off the track. “I recently picked up an acting class or two, so this was really a way for me to exercise those chops—”
“Nah! Nope!” As suspected, Roxy’s not having it. “I’m not letting you off the hook that easy, little lady. We need to talk about the electric chemistry between you and your leading man. And for those of you living under a rock, I’m talking about starting pitcher for the LA Dodgers Miles Westbrook. So, you’re telling me that was acting? You tryna win an Oscar? Be a triple threat? Because that rain-soaked make-out session at the end of the video almost cracked my back and my screen apart!”
“Ha! No. It’s not like that,” I reply, my cheeks aflame from her directness. “I’m just saying, we committed to the roles we were playing. And the end result was clearly effective.” I gesture with a hand in her direction. “Hope your back’s recovered,” I add cheekily.
Roxy seems poised to push back with another snarky barb, so I reach for my next trick…politely overtalking to take control of the conversation. “I think people may be reading a little bit more into this than what it really is. It’s a music video. And sure, it’s a departure for me. I’ll admit that given the news about my personal life lately, I can see why fans are having such a strong reaction. But this video was purely about creative expression. Nothing more.”
Roxy doesn’t appear to be convinced. “So, you’re telling me, on the record, that there is nothing going on behind the scenes between you and Mr. Westbrook?”
“Yes. That is what I am telling you,” I declare firmly as I imagine getting booked for an interview where I get to talk about my music for once. “Miles was a perfect gentleman on set and a phenomenal sport on a grueling day. I’m also honored that the video streams are helping raise funds for a foundation he started and named after his grandmother Evelyn, which provides support to women and girls in tough situations. It’s my small way of thanking him for helping me out on the night of the Grammys with my little wardrobe snafu. That’s what I’d like to direct our focus on. Because beyond that, there’s really nothing to see.”
I can see the moment it clicks for Roxy, that this is a losing battle. She’s not getting a viral moment out of me. By her show’s standards, this segment has been “a dud.” Now, there’s nothing left to do but play the song. Thank God.
“Well, folks, you heard it here first. Nothing to see here,” Roxy says, with about as much energy as a milked-out baby. “How about we give it a spin, though, because it’s a certified banger. In my humble opinion, you gave the inimitable Sade Adu a beautiful tribute. You wanna top it off for us?” she asks.
“It would be my pleasure,” I reply, relieved to have the finish line in sight. “To the beautiful listeners of Power 103, I’m Ella Simone, and I’m pleased to share with you my latest single, ‘No Ordinary Love.’?”
Thankfully, Janet Waterman’s satellite office in Chelsea is far more discreet than her main setup in Century City. Angelo was able to drop me off with nary a paparazzo or a pinstripe suit in sight.
I’ve got good news and bad news to share with you , Janet texted about five minutes after I wrapped my segment on Power 103. Care to swing by the office for lunch?
That was an hour ago, and now we’re perched across from each other on dueling mohair sofas with a sleek black coffee table topped with rare books and collectibles between us. “Lunch” in her mind apparently meant hot beverages, so I’m cradling a frothy cappuccino and hoping she can’t hear my stomach growl.
“I’m glad you could make it on such short notice,” she says with her signature, all-about-business rhythm. “I figured since I’m in New York, we might as well have a face-to-face.”
“Could hardly get here fast enough,” I reply. “You said there’s good news and bad? Lay it on me!”
“I got the prenup tossed out in court,” Janet says, while primly sipping from her coffee, like she’s just informed me she closed a ring on her Apple Watch—slight work in her book. “Congratulations.”
Shocked, I nearly do a spit take. Since covering a thousand-dollar silk blouse with mocha cappuccino mouth spatter is not the proper way to thank one’s attorney for winning a case, with some effort, I manage to choke it down. “I’m…I’m sorry,” I stammer over a scalded tongue. “But…how? I thought we’d have to…argue something? Present some evidence…”
“Elliot’s attorney probably thought he was slick,” Janet says with a subtle one-shouldered shrug. “But all he accomplished was to delay the inevitable when he neglected to include the final page of the contract, which showed the signatory lines. As if I wasn’t going to catch that,” she says. “He knew that doing so would make clear to me that you, in fact, as an impressionable young woman, were not availed of legal counsel upon entering into an agreement with an older, more powerful man.”
Suddenly, the urge to defend my past self crashes down on me like a wave. Setting down the coffee and clearing my throat I say, “I…I was twenty. I was an adult.” The words are feeble sounding even to me. “And Elliot assured me that Larry was looking out for both of us.”
Janet tilts her head, and her mouth draws into a flat line. An expression that says, Please keep up , without words. Because after all, we both know everything Elliot told me was a lie.
“Anyway,” she continues, “when one party is railroaded into signing away rights without legal counsel, the court may deem that resulting contract ‘unconscionable.’ I was able to make a compelling argument to that effect. So, the prenup is dismissed.”
All I can manage to say is “Wow.”
“So that’s your good news,” she replies. “But we’re not out of the woods yet. Not by any means.”
This is like a record scratch.
“There’s still the challenge to your recording contract with Onyx Records. Extricating you from this won’t be so cut-and-dry I’m afraid.”
“I take it this agreement can’t be expunged on the same grounds as the prenup?”
“That’d be too easy,” she says. “Larry Spradlin’s signature is listed beneath yours as legal counsel on this contract, which is dated two months after the prenup.”
“ Elliot’s Larry,” I say with a sigh of defeat.
For several moments we sit in silence as Janet lets me process what this all means. The prenup was always about mind control. Elliot never intended to enforce it—probably always knew he never could. But the recording contract I signed months later, that’s what truly backed me into a corner. He knew I’d been put through the paces after a whirlwind couple of years, having dropped out of school, been cut off from home, and trying and failing to break through in LA. All those losses made him look like a major win. And in almost every sense of the word, he was. I have the career nineteen-year-old me dreamed of all those nights she spent chasing pavements. But what they don’t tell you is that sometimes our dreams look a little different when they become a reality.
“There’s a reason I only take on women as clients,” Janet says, breaking the weighted silence. “We’re not expected to fight. They assume we either don’t have the will or we can’t find the resources.”
I let her words sink in, and when I don’t respond, she shifts in her seat. “Mind if I tell you a story?”
“Of course not,” I say.
She replaces her coffee on the table between us and settles back into her cushions. It’s the first time I’ve seen her assume anything resembling a casual posture—like she’s removing a mask of sorts.
“When my maternal grandparents emigrated from Mexico, they came here with two little boys, my uncles Tomas and Eugenio. My mother was born a few years later, after they’d gotten settled in Southern California. But my grandparents and the boys spent those first years without documentation. Naturally they found jobs and got by, and eventually, my grandfather went through the naturalization process. After a while he got his boys set up too. Then, of course, being born here, my mother was a citizen. She was good. But my grandmother, her mom…my grandfather refused her every time she asked. He knew that without papers, she could never truly leave him.”
At this point I feel a strange heat take over my body, a fury for a woman I could never know, but who feels so familiar to me at the same time.
“And so,” Janet says, subtly swiping a tear from the corner of her eye, “you’re probably thinking, ‘Now, why is my divorce lawyer telling me her family’s backstory?’ I’m telling you for this reason—and I need you to understand me plainly—there are many ways to abuse a person.”
Her words sink into me like stones. And her gaze pins me in place. Like she hopes I have heard her. Like she needs me to know that she’s not just talking about her grandmother, in the same way she’s not just talking about me. She is talking about all the many women and people like us who have found themselves struggling to figure out why love sometimes hurts, when the truth is, it wasn’t love to begin with. It was control.