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“I wanna be your lover, I wanna get to know you, baby. One dose of your lovin’, I’m simply going to drive you crazy”- Joe
Thaddeus showed up to Mirabella’s right on time. He usually was late but he was really hungry today and it seemed as if he was too busy to eat. He was soon escorted to their table and was surprised to see that it was only a table for two. Serena was already there. She smiled at him and stood up and hugged him close to her. “So glad you could make it, Thad”she said with a smile. “Your right on time”
“Its good to see you”Thaddeus said,”Um….where’s Suzzette?”
“She had an emergency so she told me to take care of everything”
“So you take care of the club as well?”
“Oh you’ll talk about that with her later, we are here to talk about my career…and to get to know each other of course”she said as she sipped on her white wine. “I want you to make me into a star, Thad”she said and giggled. “Have you listened to my demo?”
“I have”Thaddeus said. She was ok…..but she needed a lot of work. “We have a lot of work to do”he said honestly, but he said it with a smile on his face so it wouldn’t sound so daunting.
“Oh I cant wait”she said excitedly. “But I totally trust you so, lets get to that later. I wanna get to know the man that will make my wishes come true”she said,”You single?”
Thaddeus almost spit out his water. That bitch set him up. This was literally a date. “I don’t like to discuss that with my future clients”
“That’s means your single. Nothing wrong with it. Im single too”Serena said and winked.
Thaddeus sighed, this was going to be a long one.
*
“Oh shes going to kill me. Shes going to fucking kill me”Ella muttered to herself as she drove her white Honda Civic downtown. She got a disturbing call at the office and Suzzette was going to kill the messenger for it, and that was her. She arrived at Mirabella’s, knowing that she made reservations for her there. She wouldn’t usually bother her about this but this was important…and she wasn’t answering her cell. She walked in and didn’t even have to ask where they were, she heard Serena’s loud laugh at the front door. She made her way to the middle of the restaurant and realized that Serena was on a date….with Thaddeus?
“Ella? What are you doing here?”Serena said annoyed. Thaddeus turned around in his seat and smiled widely. But was that a look of relief on his face?
“Where’s Suzzette? I made her a reservation…”
“Shes obviously not here, Ella. She had somewhere else to be”Serena said as she rolled her eyes
“Do you know where? Its really important. I REALLY need to talk to her”Ella said
“Are you ok, Ella?”Thaddeus asked her
“I’ll be ok if I find her”
“I don’t know where she is”Serena said with a shrug. “Now if you mind…”she said as she nodded her head at Thaddeus.
“Um…ok….well sorry to have interrupted your…..ugh date”
“Ok whatever”Serena said
“Its not a date”Thaddeus said at the same time as Serena. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Unfortunately, not”Ella said. “See you around, Thaddeus”she said and left the restaurant. That was awkward. What was Thaddeus doing with Serena and why did he look like he didn’t want to be there? And where the fuck was Suzzette? It was one of Ella’s many jobs to know her schedule at all times. She drove all over town and Suzzette was nowhere to be found. She drove home and saw her car in the driveway. “Oh thank God”she said as she ran inside. She went straight to the kitchen and Suzzette was sitting at the bar drinking an alcoholic concoction of some sort. “Suzzette-“
“Why are you not at the office?”Suzzette asked her
“Ive been calling your cell and what I need to say is very important. I left Courtney in charge”
“Courtney!? The ex-heroin addict!?”
“Suzzette, you hired her. And shes been clean for 2 years-“
“I only hired her as a favor”Suzzette said. “Now what was so important that you had to leave my clothing store with an ex drug addict?”
“Your lawyer called”Ella said as she gave her some papers. “You’re being sued”
“Sued!? For what!”Suzzette yelled in shock
“Basically, Kim Kardashian is suing you for infringement. She claims that your perfume, “Winter White”, smells just like her perfume”
“KIM KARFUCKINGDASHIAN!?”Suzzette screamed. “She can kiss my ass, wait, she has enough ass for the both of us. Hell, all 4 of us!!! That bitch has no proof! Im not the one with the sex tape”she said angrily as she downed her drink.
“Ok….well that’s what I thought too….well about her not having proof….so I bought her perfume”Ella said as she put both perfumes on the counter
“WHY!?”Suzzette said as she stared at Kim’s perfume like it was rodent.
“I wanted to smell it to see if she had a story here and um, well you should smell it for yourself”she said as she sprayed Kim’s perfume on Suzzette’s wrist. “Well?”
Suzzette frowned and picked up their Winter White perfume and sprayed it on her other wrist. “All perfumes smell alike these days. Ugh now Im confusing the two….”she said as she smelled each wrist.
“I looked at the ingredients and….they are exactly the same….”Winter White” was released a month after hers as well”Ella said. Was there something that Suzzette wasn’t telling them? Suzzette continued to smell,”Suzette, what are we going to do?”
“Just shut the fuck up and let me think”Suzzette snapped. “These perfumes are giving me a migraine. Make sure to get a refund for that one”she said as she pointed to Kim’s perfume. “Get me my cigarettes, mix me another drink and get my lawyer on the phone. If Kim wants a war, she’ll get one. I’ll go Hitler on her Mexican ass”
“I think shes Armenian….”
“Get my fucking cigarettes, Ella, I don’t have time for this bullshit”Suzzette snapped.
*
With the new lawsuit, it made Ella even busier. She was now in charge of the clothing store and the fragrances while Suzzette dealt with the lawsuit. Her wishes of days at the beach and dancing wasn’t coming true anytime soon. “Alright, I will have them mailed to you….your welcome, bye”Ella said as she hung up. She sat in Suzzette’s office chair and sighed.
“Thaddeus Channing is here to see Miss Browne? Should I tell him to call instead?”Willa, their maid asked her.
“Um, no, bring him on back”Ella said with a smile. Willa nodded and left. Ella looked at the mirror on Suzzette’s desk and fixed her hair, she put on some lipgloss. “What am I doing?”she asked herself.
“Ella! So good to see you, how have you been?”Thaddeus said as he walked into the room.
“Busy, you?”
“I know you have been busy. I was at the club last night and you didn’t even say hi”
“You were there last night?”she asked him
“Oooooh!”Thaddeus said as he clutched his heart. “Oh it hurts. A woman has never said that to me!”
“That’s a sign that you need to get over yourself”Ella said playfully
“Oh its like that huh?”Thaddeus asked with a laugh. He loved talking to Ella. She had some spunk about her. “Um, well I was in the neighborhood and Suzzette has been hard to get a hold of these days...I don’t know if you would know but she said that she had the finalized contracts for Esmee…”
“Oh! I do know what your talking about”Ella said as she turned around and looked through a file cabinet and pulled out the Esmee Denters file. “Here it is”she said as she handed it to him. “I think all you need to do is look it over and sign it”she said as she gave it to him.
He sat down and looked through the contract. Ella didn’t want to stare at him, though it was hard not to, and checked her Facebook while she waited. “Oh…”he said
“Something wrong?”
“No….but it says here that the contract starts next week. That means Suzzette wants Esmee to start performing next week?”he asked her
Ella looked at the contract. She nodded,”Yeah…that’s what it says…is that a problem?”
“No it wont be. Esmee will have to work her ass off for the next week”he said as he signed it. “She wont mind, trust me”he said with a huge smile.
Ella smiled. He had a wonderful smile. “Esmee is your baby, isn’t she?”
“Uh no…I don’t date clients”
“No…I mean….like shes your project. Like your first and favorite project. That kind of baby…”
“Oh, well yes in a way. Shes the first singer I ever managed and shes going far already. Ive managed dancers, songwriters, musicians. Shes my first yeah”
“Esmee is lucky to have someone like you look after her best wishes. Serena too”Ella said
“Oh stop, Ella, your making me blush”he said. “I’ll try my best to make your step-sister into a superstar”he said. There was an awkward silence. “Well, ya’ll got a nice place here. Would you mind giving me a tour?”
“I don’t mind at all”she said as she stood up. She showed him the whole estate and they laughed and joked while they did so.
“Wow y'all got this place hooked up”he said as they left Sasha’s DJ room, which looked like a nightclub in a small 8 by 10 foot room.
“Yeah, those three have to have the best of everything”
“What about you?”
“Im more simple. I don’t need that kind of stuff. Im up in the attic”she said. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh um….its like my own little penthouse. My own space you know?”she said
“Ooooh mind if I see?”
“No”Ella said quickly. “It’s a mess”she said. And it wasn’t a penthouse. It was an actual attic with one window and hand me down furniture. It looked like the projects compared to the rest of the house. “And here is Serena’s dance room”she said as she led Thaddeus into a room with hardwood floors and the walls were covered in mirrors. It had a state of the art sound system and a barre to practice on.
“Now this is my favorite room”Thaddeus said in awe
“Mine too”
“Oh yeah you are the dancer in the family”he said. Then he smiled wickedly. “Now you have no choice”
“Huh?”
“Show me what you got, lil mama”Thaddeus quoted Jay-Z as he turned on the sound system.
“You cant touch that-“
“I can do what I want, and your going to dance for me”he said as he pressed play. Lady GaGa’s “So Happy I Could Die” started to play. “You know you want to”
“Fine, shit”Ella said. She looked at herself in the mirrors and then closed her eyes as she listened to the lyrics.
“I love that lavender blonde, the way she moves, the way she walks, I touch myself, cant get enough”
Ella then started to dance. She did some lyrical and mixed some hip-hop into the freestyle. Thaddeus watched her with a smile. He was happy to see her smile and in her element and at peace.
“Happy in the club with a bottle of red wine, smiles in our eyes cuz we’re having a good time. Eh, eh, so happy I could die”Ella started to sing along as she did a pirouette
“Nice! Teach me that”Thaddeus said as he walked up to her. Ella stared at him with surprise. “Oh you don’t think I can do it? Teach me, I'll show you”he said.
Ella laughed and taught him the moves and he picked up quickly like any other trained dancer would. “Wow! Your good at this!”
“Ive been dancing since I was 10”he said. “Your good at this too. Graceful and flawless”he said
“Oh stop”she said as she blushed and continued to dance. Once she started she couldn’t stop. “I love this song. Sasha got me addicted to Lady GaGa”
“Shes addictive, that GaGa”he said as he danced close to her. “You should dance more at the nightclub. You’ll have the men flocking to you”
“Im too busy to dance”
“Or your not allowed”he said
She nodded,”Well yeah that too”
“Are you allowed to do anything at work?”he asked her. It was killing him that Ella had such a strange relationship with her family.
“Yeah, work”Ella said with a shrug. Why was he so concerned? “I want to work. I need to work. Its better than McDonalds or something….people literally fight to get in our club every night and I have a front row seat-“
“Ok I get it, your grateful. Your just fine with being busy”he said to her. “Im the same way”he said as he wiped some sweat off his brow. “You didn’t break a sweat”
“That’s cuz Im not old”Ella said with a shrug. “Would you like something to drink? Im awfully rude”she said apologetically as she shut off the sound system.
“Yes I would love a drink…and an apology”he said with a laugh. “Im only 29….”he said as he followed her to the kitchen
“Only 29?”she asked jokingly. “I shouldn’t talk though. I’ll be just as old in 4 years”she said as she got a glass out of the cabinet.
“So you’re a quarter of a century old? Your getting up there too, you old geezer”
“Well when you put it like that”she said with a laugh. “Careful now, Im making your drink…”
“Oh so your going to poison my apple martini, that’s what we’re having by the way, o’ Royal Queen?”
“Oh a martini huh?”she asked as she put the glass away and went over to the bar and got out a martini glass. “Wait what do you mean we?”
“Your at home, your 25 and I want you to….or is Suzzette against that too?”he asked her
“Um no”she said awkwardly
“Sorry that last one was out of line”
“No its fine”she said as she got another martini glass. “Your right. Im home and Im 25”she said as she started mixing the drinks. “So tell me about yourself, Mr. Channing”she said to him
*