Mama Dearest by E. Lynn Harris

daughter.” Derrick was always so sweet, and in this case, a nice guy had finished first.
    “My sweet child,” Ava said in a condescending voice. “Has your cheese slipped off your cracker? If it wasn’t for you, that little girl wouldn’t be alive. If there is anyone she owes, it’s you and, uh, me. Because if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have given birth to her. That’s what’s right.”
    This was too much. “Ava, stop it.”
    “Yancey, we’re both broke. We have no money and not a lot of potential. Do you understand that? We can barely afford food withoutone of us having to pawn something. You’re about to lose your house because you can’t sell it.”
    “Well, I have you to thank for that. But it’s going to sell. Besides, I’m going to make money when my reality show takes off.”
    “What if it doesn’t come through? Do you know how much money that little girl is making or going to make? Millions,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I read up on her and they say she’s like a black Miley Cyrus. They say Miley Cyrus is almost a billionaire. I read some-where that Madison is already bigger than some teen rappers called Lil Mama and Teyana Taylor, who both are millionaires.” She opened her arms wide, as if to take in all her future money. “A couple million for her birth mother and grandmother would hardly be missed.”
    I sipped my coffee, trying not to lose it. “Ava, I will make my own money. I had a chance to become involved in Madison’s life and, following your advice, I passed. She owes me nothing.”
    “I’m going to call her and see if she wants to meet us.”
    “Ava, don’t you dare!” I yelled. “Do you hear me?” I said, raising my finger to Ava’s face. “Promise me you won’t try to contact her.”
    She looked right through my warning finger. “She’s going to be in New York today doing a signing at a record store. Don’t you want to go?”
    “No, I
don’t
want to go. And
you
better not either. Are we clear on this?”
    Ava sighed deeply, lowered her face, and said, “Yes, we’re clear.”
    But this is Ava, my mother, who I know doesn’t take orders from anyone. I’m the daughter who has suffered from her capers most of my life. Ava, the devious diva. I know I have to come up with a plan to protect Madison long before Ava implements her own scheme.

CHAPTER 10
    It was a beautiful day outside of Virgin Records, located in the heart of Times Square. The sky was painted a pastel blue, and not a single cloud dotted the luminous canvas. Ava wore a flowing red and yellow sundress, an off-the-shoulder design she’d found in Yancey’s guest room closet. It didn’t look like anything Yancey would have worn, and Ava figured it most likely belonged to a friend or former roommate. As she stood outside the record store, the dress fit more snugly than Ava thought appropriate, and the first thing she planned to do when she lost some weight and got some money was to go shopping. Still, Ava knew she looked cute with the matching red pumps and her huge, dark Donna Karan sunglasses covering her eyes.
    Ava caught her reflection in one of the store’s windows, and thought, I’m as broke as a joke, but I could still pass for a movie star. She knew she was about to do exactly what she had been instructed not to do. But Yancey didn’t understand nobody told Ava what to do and what not to do. Those days for her were over.
    Turning the corner, Ava was rudely halted by a long line of teenagegirls and their mothers. The line stretched completely around the block.
    “What is this line for?” Ava asked the blond-haired teen girl at the very back of the line. The girl turned to Ava, wearing a Madison B. T-shirt. She looked at Ava as though she didn’t have the sense of a first grader, pointed to her shirt and said, “Duh, hello, lady.”
    “Are all these people here to see Madison B.?”
    The blond girl’s mother looks at Ava and nods her head. Eyeing the line of girls