Malaika and Eva both frowned. “What do you mean a wild goose chase?” Malaika asked worriedly.
“Oh, I noticed that the reporter who has been publishing the stories on me and on Scott, was following me today. Well, at first I didn’t know that it was him, I just saw a car following me, and I decided to give whoever it was a good chase, and on the way I called the police station and told them that I was being followed.
They sent two squad cars with two officers, and one of them pulled the jerk over while the other one sat with me. Turns out that it was this reporter,” she smacked the newspaper in annoyance, “and I have to get a restraining order on him to stop him from following me all over kingdom come.” Naomi turned her attention to the article.
“Let’s see… so I guess it was helpful to him that he put out the mention about offering money for leads on finding Scott’s other woman, because the woman came forward herself. It seems that she’s not too impressed with me, and she thinks I’m a phony who is trying to pin Scott down to keep him because he’s a celebrity. She gave an exclusive interview here. She talks like a psycho… my god. How could he have ever slept with her? I don’t understand that. Not even as drunk as he says that he was… if he was.” She read on.
“Oh my god…” Naomi said, and stopped as she continued reading in silence.
“What?” demanded Malaika as Eva handed a cup of tea to Naomi. “You can’t just say something like that and then stop reading it to us! What happened?” Even Keisha looked over while she was in the middle of a phone call, with one ear on the phone and one ear listening in to the conversation that she was too busy to join.
“She’s married!” Naomi gasped in amazement, looking around at the other ladies. “She is a married woman, and she says that Scott came on to her and that she had too much to drink and she couldn’t resist him. She says that she made a mistake and that she regrets it, but she doesn’t regret the baby. She says she’s glad that she wound up with his child, and that she hopes that the two of them can work it out because he wants her and he’s secretly in love with her! My god! She’s psychotic!”
Except for the phone call that Keisha was on, the rest of the room was silent, and Eva and Malaika both stared at her.
“I just can’t believe this!” She stared at the paper herself, trying to figure out if the woman, Cora Evans, was a complete whack job, or if there was some truth in the middle somehow.
Across town at his house, Scott had just gotten out of his swimming pool when he heard his cell phone ringing. At a glance he could see that he had missed several calls, and he could see that they were all from Harold. He knew that something must have gone very wrong. Harold was not a patient man, but at the opposite end of that spectrum, he wasn’t a totally impatient man, either.
“Hello?” Scott asked, wiping his head and face on his towel as he tried to keep his phone dry.
“Scotty! Where in the hell have you been? Do you know how many times I’ve tried to call you? Answer your damn phone when I call!” Harold snapped at him in irritation.
“Sorry, I was in the pool. What’s going on? Are you all right?” Scott asked as concern tugged at him.
“No I’m not all right! Have you looked at the paper this morning? Of course you haven’t looked at the paper this morning, or you wouldn’t be all right either,” Harold grumbled. “Get the paper. Now. Go out front and get it while you’re on the phone with me.”
Scott’s stomach began to twist, and he did as he was bidden to do, going outside at his front door to get his newspaper. “What am I looking for? What happened?” Any number of tragedies flitted through his mind.
“That dame you screwed… the one night stand. Well… she gave an exclusive interview to that jackass at the Times, and she told him more than you’re gonna believe.” Harold sounded completely disgusted.
“What are you talking about? What did she say? She couldn’t have said much, it was just one night… and it was just one time. There’s not that much to tell.” He felt a cold stone in the pit of his stomach.
“Well, I know that you’re going to read it, but I’ll give you the low down. For starters, she’s married,” he began, sounding as disgusted as Scott felt.
“She’s what? She… oh god. I didn’t know that she was married. She never told me that,” Scott replied quietly as he sat in a chair at the table on the patio by the pool. He set the newspaper on the table and opened it page by page, looking through it for the article as Harold continued to talk to him.
“She said that she’s glad that she’s having your kid and that she hopes that you two can work it out, because you’re in love with her, and that you asked her to leave her husband for you. Did you do that? Did you ask this broad to dump her husband and shack up with you?” Harold sounded as if he might threaten Scott if that were the case.
“No! God no! I mean… I was drunk, but I sure as hell am not in love with her and I never asked her to leave her husband for me. That’s outrageous! What is she doing? I have enough problems going on with that reporter and Naomi right now!” Scott flipped back and forth between the pages as he continued to search for the article.
“Oh… well, she brought up Naomi, too. She tore her apart and said she’s a fake and she’s trying to get to you for your money and fame by using a pregnancy from another guy. She didn’t have anything good to say about her or Jennifer. She made it sound like she is the love of your life.” Harold sighed and moaned miserably.
“Scotty, you better knock this crap of with these broads; they just aren’t worth it! We’ve worked way too hard to have some stupid chick sneak into the mix and screw it all up! Do you hear me? Your sponsors have already been calling me. They want to know what you’re doing. They’re seeing all of these stories and they don’t feel like you’re a good, moral, upstanding kind of man. They don’t think you’re a family man.
You’re coming off as a playboy, and that might sound like a good time, but it’s going to cost you a fortune unless you start doing condom ads.” Harold sounded gruff and irritable.
Scott finally found the article on page two of the newspaper and skimmed through it, reading everything that Harold had just told him about. He was livid when he saw it all. “That bitch. I can’t believe she did this! How am I going to raise a kid with someone who lies like this? What am I going to do with her?”
“You’re not going to do nothin’ with her, do you hear me?” Harold told him seriously. “There’s one way to fix this, and that’s it. Are you listening to me? You wanna save your career? You listen to me. You are going to marry Jennifer Jones. That’s the only way to fix this,” Harold stated emphatically.
Scott gasped. “Marry Jennifer? Are you crazy? I’m not going to marry Jennifer!”
“If you want to save your career you are. She is the best thing that ever happened to your career, and you’ve just about got your entire career screwed up now because of all these other women and their babies and all this garbage… no. You stop it. You stop it right where it is now.
You get married to Jennifer Jones. Everyone loves her, and everyone loves you with her. You’re going to keep all of your sponsors if you do that; if you show them that you’re a family man, and you show them that you’re settling down. Hell, you’ll probably get a bunch more sponsors just from all the publicity from the engagement and the wedding.
Are you listening to me? You marry Jennifer Jones. That’s what you do. That’s how you fix this. There’s no other way to do it.” Harold sounded as if he had just declared a mandate.