WILDFIRE
By Aysia Anderson (a.k.a. Nikki)
Chapter
One: Beginning The Negotiations
"I can’t believe you have me doing this, Cam." Nastassia Johnson,
famous female rapper, sighed heavily into her cellular phone as her Hummer
approached the offices of VH1. Her driver Stan sat quietly in the front with her
bodyguard, Vance, as she spoke on the phone to one of her closest friends.
"There is no reason that I should be doing this."
"I thought that you wanted to help Justin and I out?" Camille’s
voice remarked from the small cell phone that Nastassia held to her ear.
"We need you for this, Na$. Nobody else will be able to get it right."
"You and Justin can tell this whole story quite well yourselves, don’t
you think?"
"Na$, please?"
"Damn, girl!" she huffed, staring out of the window at the large
skyscrapers surrounding her from behind her shades. "I’m almost there so
asking me about it now is kind of irrelevant. I didn’t cancel that meeting
with Dr. Dre for nothing."
"You cancelled a meeting with Dre?" Camille questioned as she sat up
in the bathtub of her home abruptly causing the bubble-coated water to swirl
around her naked body. "Why the hell did you do that? He can do wonders for
your career!"
"No shit, Sherlock. I’m doing this for you and that fucking pin head of
yours."
"God, how am I going to make this up to you?" she slunk back down into
the water.
"Look, kid. Don’t worry about it, okay? You two have a lot of other
things to deal with like this supposed television mini-drama that they want to
base off of the relationship." Nastassia paused as the sound of her two-way
beeping. Without thinking about it she pulled it from her purse and flipped it
open. There was a message from Nelly on the screen.
"They don’t know the facts."
"They don’t need to know the facts, Camille. They can say whatever they
want to say and you won’t be able to touch them because they’ll brandish it
with that good old ‘the UNOFFICIAL story of…’ bullshit and get away with
it."
"This whole fucking situation is making me sick." Camille winced as if
in pain. "Have you talked to your man yet?"
"Yeah, he just sent me a two-way." Nastassia answered. "I guess
VH1 just asked him for an interview on you guys as well."
"I guess they’re just going to call in every last person we socialize
with. You know they asked my mom to come in?"
"I heard about that. Nelly said they called Justin’s parents and his boy,
Trace. They’re bringing in the big guns. MTV is going to be pissed that you
guys aren’t doing this through them."
"MTV can kiss my ass right now."
"Shit, it looks like we’re here, Cam, so I’m going to have to let you
go so I can get this over with." Nastassia announced as the Hummer pulled
into the parking lot at the VH1 offices and the driver cut the engine. "You
take care of you, okay? Don’t go doing anything stupid."
"Define stupid,” the young woman clucked.
"Camille?"
"Alright, alright. I’ll talk to you later."
"I’ll give you a call as soon as I can."
"Yep," Camille waited for the familiar sound of the dial tone before
pushing the talk button on the cordless phone and placing it on the side of the
tub. All she wanted to do at that moment was simply disappear. She wanted to
dissolve into the water and slide down the drain never to be seen again.
Working in the entertainment industry could be murder and for Camille Henderson
her death was played over and over again for the world to see. She hadn’t
talked to Justin in about a week and though she had asked for it she wasn’t
sure that she was quite ready to receive it. He had fucked up and there was no
doubt about that but she didn’t want him gone though her lips may have formed
the words to make him leave.
She closed her eyes weakly and slid further into the water until it met with her
chin. All her life she had wanted to be famous. She had wanted the world at her
feet and to be recognized, to not have to work at a fast food joint taking
orders from a pimple-faced high school student that had made manager before her.
Was that too much to ask?
She wished that someone had told her that all that glitters was not gold. From
the outside looking in she had everything in the world that someone as ambitious
as she was could possibly hope for. Her face was on millions of magazine covers,
she held world records for numbers of albums sold and debuts at number one,
legions of devoted fans all over the world…and a handsome and loving man to
share it all with.
"There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home." Camille
chanted as she scooted her body forward and her head disappeared beneath the
surface of the water.
****
"Guess you’re pretty lucky that you didn’t sell the Orlando
residence." Trace Ayala commented, sitting down heavily on the couch in the
living room while his friend lay on his stomach in the middle of floor.
"What’s wrong, man?"
"I don’t know, Trace, what do you think then problem could possibly
be?" Justin Timberlake replied, his head resting on his crossed arms, with
eyes closed. He hadn’t shaved in days and his hair was out of control. He was
letting the entire situation eat him alive.
"You and Camille are going to be fine, dude. You’ll get back together and
it will be like none of this ever happened."
"And if we don’t get back together?"
"Then she’ll have grounds to take everything that you own, collect
alimony as well as child support for Nicole. How does that sound?" Trace
replied honestly.
"Fuck off, Trace."
"Don’t ask me questions that you don’t want the answers to."
Justin shook his head slowly, never once opening his eyes. "I just want to
die, man. That’s all I want to do."
Trace looked over the crumpled mass of his best friend lying in the floor and
took a deep breath. "It’s not the end of the world, J. You two are
separated. If she wanted to divorce you then she would have filed the papers
already."
"She should divorce me." he retorted. "For the shit I did she
should fucking divorce me and no other woman should ever come my way."
"Justin, I’m sorry, but grow some balls here, okay? Camille is not the
start-all or end-all."
"Trace, I really don’t need this shit from you right now." Justin
pushed himself off of the floor and headed out of the room toward the kitchen.
Trace looked on silently but didn’t attempt to follow after him. He simply
reached over to the side table to lift the remote control into his hand and flip
on the television.
Hazily Justin stepped into the kitchen feeling the cool temperature of the floor
against his bare feet. He scratched his chest threw his crinkled dark gray
t-shirt that read ‘white trash’ and headed toward the refrigerator. Weakly
he curled his fingers around the handle and pulled open the door to reveal the
lack of contents within. He had forgotten to make groceries. He’d grown used
to the refrigerator at home with Camille always being stocked up and ready for
the picking.
"Shit," he mumbled as he closed the door and his eyes surveyed the
room. "Trace, you want a pizza, man?" he called out.
"We’ve had pizza every night this week, Timberlake." Trace’s voice
returned.
"Do you plan on cooking anything to eat?" he continued his mumbling
under his breath before shouting out the idea for Chinese food. Trace agreed to
the new food option so he headed for the phone hanging on the side of the wall.
Lifting the cordless phone from its base, Justin went to the kitchen counter and
pulled out a stool. Planting himself on it he turned on the telephone and
reached to his left for the phone book. While searching for the number to
Chow’s Chinese Cuisine his thumb moved over the buttons of the phone freely
and before he knew it the ringing had begun.
Pursing his lips together he stopped flipping through the many tissue thin pages
of the phone book and brought the phone to his ear. On the third ring someone
picked up the line. He closed his eyes painfully.
"Hello?" Camille’s voice asked for the second time from the other
end. She had barely heard the ringing of the phone from under the water but she
really didn’t appreciate answering it and hearing no reply. "Hello?"
Justin took a deep breath and began to speak, "Can I just talk to you for a
minute without us arguing or you hanging up the phone?"
A long silence ensued. He wasn’t sure if she was thinking about his request or
if she had simply put the phone down and walked away. After so long he was about
to simply give up and accept the defeat but finally she regained her voice.
"Are you calling for me or do you need to talk to our daughter,
Justin?" she asked as coldly as she could though she feared that he could
hear the desperation of having to hear him in her voice.
"Baby, I want to talk to Nicole but I really want to talk to you right now,
okay? We need to talk about what happened."
"Justin, honestly, I don’t think I can do this right now with you."
"Alright, alright," he rushed, "can we just talk then? Not about
anything in specific but just talk to each other?"
Camille swallowed down the lump rising in her throat before agreeing to his
wishes. She had never been so angry with him before but through that anger she
still cared about him. If she didn’t care she wouldn’t be upset, she’d
have no emotion. He was always quick to tell her something like that.
"Alright," Justin exhaled loudly, relieved that she would hear him
out. "How are things doing around the house?"
"Fine."
"What about Nicole?"
"Nicole is doing great. She’s doing a lot of scribbling and drawing,
playing with her dolls…her usual."
"Has she asked about me?"
"Um, yeah. Yes, she did."
Justin nodded slowly, "What’d you tell her?"
"I told her that her daddy is working, that he had to go sing for a lot of
people." Camille answered.
"Okay…" he began to pick at the knee of his pajama pants nervously.
"Chamomile?"
She rolled her eyes, shaking her head, as she heard him call her by the pet name
that he had bestowed her. "J, don’t…"
"Don’t what?" Justin asked emotionally, "Fuck! I miss you so
much right now, babe, why can’t you understand that?"
"It’s not about not understanding that, Justin, it’s about not
understand what the hell possessed you to do what you did!" Camille replied
just as emotionally as he. "You think that I don’t care about you or that
I don’t miss you too? I fucking married you, Justin, you gotta give me a lot
more credit than that!" she stopped to take a moment to breath realizing
that her daughter was standing in the doorway of the bathroom.
"Great."
"What?"
"Nicole’s in here." she whispered back into the phone. "Come
here, sweetie."
The small girl with the complexion of honey rushed into the room, the bundle of
light brown sun-kissed hair secured with a ribbon bouncing near the top of her
head, and came to stand at the side of the pink porcelain tub. Her big hazel
colored eyes stared at her mother curiously as she stood in a white shirt,
purple jumper, and jelly sandals. She had many of the physical features of her
father in that they shared the same bone structure, nose, ears and eyes. Her
smile, though, was definitely a replica of her mother’s.
"Guess who wants to talk to you?" Camille forced a smile which her
daughter reciprocated though hers was genuine.
"Is it daddy?" Nicole’s eyes lit up instantly at the mere thought.
"Yeah," she nodded. "You want to talk to him now?"
"Uh-huh," she grinned widely as Camille handed her the phone and she
placed it to her ear. "Daddy?"
"Hey, sweetheart. How are you?" Justin immediately erased the emotions
that had just been stirred up by talking to his wife and replaced them with his
soothing daddy persona.
"I’m okay. Mommy and I have been having lots of fun together playing
dollies, having tea parties and talking about you." she reported and
Camille closed her eyes, submerging herself back under the water.
"Oh? What did you and mommy say?"
"Well mommy said that she misses you a lot and she can’t wait for you to
get home from doing your shows." Nicole turned to see that her mother had
disappeared in the tub. "Don’t tell her but I think she was crying last
night. She says that she wasn’t but I don’t believe her."
"Well, you have to believe mommy, sweetheart."
"Daddy, when are you coming home?"
"Oh," Justin stared up at the ceiling unsure of how to answer the
question that his daughter had just asked. "I’m not too sure, princess,
but I hope that I can come back sometime soon. I don’t like being away from
you and mommy for so long. I’m going to send you something though, okay?"
"A new dolly?"
"Is that what you want?"
"Yes…only if you bring it though." Nicole began to play with the
bubbles in the bathtub. "Mommy, silly." she giggled.
"Baby, is it all right if I talk to mommy now? Where is she?"
"Under the bubbles."
"What?" Justin furrowed his eyebrows. "Baby, let me talk to her,
okay?" He listened as Nicole called her mother’s name while laughing and
told her that her daddy wanted to talk to her. "Camille?"
Camille breathed in the air, the water running over her face from her hair.
"Yeah?"
"Can I see you and Nicole today?"
"J,"
"I just want to sit down with my family, tuck my daughter into bed, and
talk to you one on one. Is that okay?"
"Aren’t you in Orlando right now?" she rationalized.
"Babe, I can get there. Just say that it’s okay."
*****
Nastassia sat down on the large plush red chair that was set up in front of a
small crew of cameramen and staff of VH1. Just as she was beginning to get
comfortable the stylist and lighting director approached her and began to powder
and examine her skin under light graphs. By the time that she was nearing the
point of being highly annoyed they had finished their obligations and returned
to their places behind the scenes.
Blowing out the air in her lungs she adjusted her hair over her shoulders and
made sure that the velour sweat suit jacket that she was wearing was zipped up
high enough so that her cleavage would not be the next scandal to bust out on
television. She was beginning to wonder what was taking so long to get the show
on the road. She wasn’t getting paid to sit around and look pretty though
under other circumstances she may not have had any complaints. There were many
different productive activities she could be doing at the time.
"Ah, Nastassia," an older man with graying hair wearing a black button
down shirt and dark denim jeans entered the small stage area and extended his
hand to her. "I’m Gary Smith and I’ll be the man interviewing you
today."
"Nice to meet you, Gary." she took his hand and shook it firmly.
"I apologize for the delays here. We’ve been very busy trying to scrounge
up the correct information and to make sure that were asking the appropriate
questions." he sat down on the chair diagonal to hers though it looked much
less comfortable.
"I understand completely. Don’t worry about it at all."
"Well, I suppose there’s no use in further postponing this whole thing so
do you mind if we get right on to business?" Gary waited for her to shake
her head before signaling the cameramen to begin filming. "Welcome to
VH1’s Behind the Controversy. My name is Gary Smith and today we will put the
high profile relationship of megastars Justin Timberlake and Camille Henderson
under the microscope. Right here we will speak to the people that are the
closest to the stars and get an exclusive look into what has been called
Hollywood’s Greatest Love Story Gone Awry. Our first guest tonight is close
personal friend and famed female rapper, Nastassia J." he finally turned to
her as the cameras panned slightly to include her in the shot. "It’s nice
to have you here with us, Nastassia."
"It’s nice to be here, Gary." she smiled warmly though in truth she
hated the fact that she had even shown up.
"Can you tell us why you’ve decided to sit down and speak with us about
the complicated lives of your two friends, Justin and Camille?"
"Well, I’m here to help them to set the record straight." she began.
"There are so many different stories coming out about them and only about
fifteen percent of these stories hold any truth to them. A lot of people think
that they know what’s going on or are so confused by the different twists and
turns that these reporters are giving them that they’re left only to
speculate. I find myself here, right now, because justice needs to be done to my
friends. They asked me to be here and without fail I am right here."