Boy Trouble by Reshonda Tate Billingsley Page A

over it while I’m in hair and makeup,” I told her.
    Tamara nodded her approval. “So, have you heard anything else on the Demond-Mynique situation? Were you able to confirm if they actually physically fought?”
    â€œNo,” I replied, holding up an emerald-green wrap dress and plum pantsuit that the stylists had left out for me to choose from.
    â€œMaya,” Tamara said, like she was really disappointed in me. “We really need to be making some progress on this story. Find out what’s going on. If they had a fight, were police called? Did she press charges? We can’t let the ball drop on this. I mean, you pitch the story, but you keep making excuses about why you don’t want to follow up. At least call, see if you can get a statement from her or Demond. We need to run something. I don’t have to tell you, if this story pops up somewhere else, I am not going to be pleased.”
    â€œFine,” I said. For the first time in, like, forever, my job was getting on my nerves. “I’ll get right on it,” I told her.
    Tamara gave me a “you’d better” look and exited my office. I chose the plum pantsuit, changed, then called Portia, the makeup artist, and told her that I was ready. While I waited, I decided to go ahead and see what I could find out about Demond and Mynique. Maybe I could do a story without running the video, because the video was pretty bad.
    I didn’t have Mynique’s cell phone number, but I managed to find her home number online. I used the station phone to dial the number.
    A woman’s voice answered. “Hello.”
    â€œHi, is Mynique Foxx available?”
    There was a hesitation, and then the woman said, “This is her cousin. Mynique doesn’t live here.”
    â€œOh, well, this is Maya Morgan from—”
    â€œOh, my God! Maya Morgan from Rumor Central ?” the girl squealed so loud.
    â€œYeah, that Maya Morgan.” I smiled. I loved when people I was trying to get information from knew me. It made my job so much easier.
    â€œOh, my God. You are the bomb-dot-com,” she continued. “I love your show. Oooh, I remember when you broke that story about—”
    â€œThank you so much,” I said, cutting her off. I knew if I didn’t, she would keep going on and on. “I was trying to get in touch with Mynique.”
    â€œFor what?” The excitement quickly left her voice.
    I debated how much I should say, but I needed to get some info. “Do you know how to get in touch with Mynique?”
    She hesitated again, then said, “Nah, I don’t.”
    â€œAre you guys close?” I decided to ask.
    â€œUmph, depends on what you call close.”
    I could tell from her tone that there was some animosity there so I decided to pounce. “Well, the other day, I actually stumbled upon Mynique and her boyfriend, Demond.”
    â€œUmph,” she repeated, but didn’t say anything more.
    â€œWell, they were in the middle of a pretty heated argument and he kinda beat her up.” I decided against sugarcoating anything and go all the way in.
    â€œKinda, huh?” The girl laughed, but didn’t seem the least bit surprised.
    â€œYeah, and well, the way he was treating her concerned me. We’re doing a story on the incident for Rumor Central and I was hoping we could get a statement from Mynique.”
    I decided to leave off the fact that I had video of the whole thing. I didn’t know if she would run back and tell Mynique and then, it would get back to Tamara and Dexter, who would be ready to wring my neck if they found out I’d had this video all this time.
    â€œUmph, she ain’t gon’ talk to you,” the girl said and my heart sank. But then, she quickly said, “But I may. You want a story, huh?”
    â€œYes,” I said a little too quickly.
    â€œWell, I got a story for you,” the girl continued, smacking her