On Top of the World Excerpt by Book Hype

On Top Of The World Until The Bell Chimes

A NOVEL

FROM AWARDWINNING PLAYWRIGHT DAVID LAMB comes a modern spin on Dickens that perfectly combines humor and romance. This version of Scrooge and Belle is familiar, yet unlike any you've come across before. Scrooge, or rather Scrooʝe, is music's biggest superstar, with one hundred million albums sold and twentyfive million fanatical Twitter followers. Belle is a legal shark who gulps down her opposition and whose beauty and stunning figure causes traffic accidents as she zips through Manhattan. They never imagined being music's power couple, but that's what happened when Belle fell head over heels and gave the Cokebottle glasses wearing, plaid and stripe attired, biggest nerd on her campus the ultimate makeover, turning

him into a fashion impresario whose style sets trends from Milan to NY Fashion Week. Then it happens. Belle realizes too late she's created a charttopping monster as Scrooʝe's ego explodes and he starts acting a fool. Now, it's been three years since they've spoken. But tonight at Hollywood's biggest event, with the whole world watching, they'll be given a second chance.

PROLOGUE Belle

The devil doesn’t wear Prada, he wears Sean John and I was the idiot who taught him how to shop. That was what I got for reading Frankenstein in college. I’d been turned into a mad scientist without even realizing it. Just my luck, I was a math major and the one literature course I took had tricked me into creating a monster. When I first met Scrooʝe, he—like most humans with XY chromosomes—was a fashion emergency. Awkwardly walking around campus—lost, desperately in need of a haircut, and for some strange reason wearing glasses so big he looked like an owl hunting for prey. He was just plain pitiful.

But I have to confess, from the moment I saw him my heart sang a happy song and I couldn’t look away. Something between us was magnetic. Hey, what can I say, I was always the kind of girl who liked rescue projects. When I was eight years old, I turned my family’s garage into a makeshift animal shelter, and damn near gave my father a heart attack when a hungry pack of strays rushed at him as he pulled into the driveway. So naturally, one look into Scrooʝe’s sad puppy dog eyes and I felt right away—he was the one. Before I knew it, we were college sweethearts and best friends. Of course, I had to clean him up, but after a few months under my tutelage everyone noticed his transformation. They saw that with his gorgeous toffee skin, deliciously full lips and sexy broad shoulders he was the cutest boy on campus. Pretty soon I had girls telling me I needed to start a makeover service.

That was how it all started. Who could have known that a simple makeover would unleash the devilish genius of the sweetest, shyest, most socially awkward boy I’d ever met, and transform him into music’s biggest superstar with an ego the size of Texas yet more fragile than an egg yolk? And a whole lot messier! Not me. Without a doubt we’ve traveled a long crazy road together. Scrooʝe was the first boy I gave my heart to. Our relationship went from me rescuing him in college, to him rescuing me in law school, to our emergence as music’s power couple. He was the artist/entrepreneur, and I was the best lawyer love could buy. And now, we’re strangers. It’s been three years since we’ve seen or spoken to each other, and sometimes, against my better judgment, I find myself thinking about him and feel a smile creep across my face. This morning was one of those times when my thoughts turned to Scrooʝe. Normally I’d tell myself off for not letting go,

but today I gave myself a break. After all, it isn’t every day that you might not just run into your ex, but do it live on television at Hollywood’s biggest event. “Everything’s gonna be fine, girl,” I told myself as I contemplated everything that could go wrong if we ran into each other at The Awards. I was especially dreading an untimely reemergence of my long-standing “klutz curse”. My whole life, I’d been jinxed with “inopportune clumsiness”. As the ring girl at my parents’ vow renewal, I stumbled, fell in the grass, and lost the rings. As a tiny ballerina, I was the best in my class, until the day of the recital when I went tumbling down like Humpty Dumpty. Now with the whole world watching, I simply could not afford such an embarrassing spill. As I sat in the back of a sleek limousine on my way to the ceremony, gazing up at the L.A. skyline, nervously checking my hair in the mirror for the dozenth time in half a dozen minutes, I

tried to push down the queasiness threatening to erupt from the pit of my stomach. The last thing I needed was to step onto the red carpet covered in this afternoon’s lunch. The paparazzi would surely have a field day with that one. Well, like I said it was exactly three years to the day that I stomped out of Scrooʝe’s life, but tonight we were both nominated for Awards. I knew God worked in mysterious ways, but now I was convinced she also had a sense of humor. I never thought I’d be nominated for anything, but life had other plans. After we broke up, I quickly discovered that the best cure for PTRS—post-traumatic-relationship-stress—was writing. By the time I finished hammering those computer keys, I was author of an award-winning, best-selling, drama-filled, tragically comic novel that Hollywood just had to have. Now here I was nominated for an Award as one of the producers of the year’s biggest movie.

Once word got out that I was nominated, I was immediately blessed (or cursed depending on your view) with a merry-go-round of opinions. From my hair to my makeup to my shoes to my dress, from my eyebrows to my voice, to making sure I didn’t have ashy knees—everyone had an opinion. Normally I was unflappable, but with so many people giving so many conflicting opinions I was suddenly a nervous wreck. Finally, I stopped answering the phone because I couldn’t take any more unsolicited advice. If someone did manage to reach me on the phone, before they could even say a word I’d say, “No, I don’t know what I’m going to wear, and no, I don’t know how I’m doing my hair,” before abruptly clicking off. Unbelievable, Russell Simmons can show up without a tie and wearing sneakers, yet still be a style icon. But let a woman have one eyelash out of place and it’ll be the lead on the evening news. Two nights before The Awards, I tried to veg out with an episode of Soccer Moms From Hell. But before I could lose myself

in the drama, my cell phone buzzed with a text. “Oh, come on!” I yelled, throwing my hands up unnecessarily dramatically. Then I looked at it. It was from my father. He wrote simply—Be you. At least there was one man in the world I could still count on. Two days later, on my way to The Awards I tried to wrap my head around the idea that I’d soon be standing on the stage with millions watching. This was not part of the plan. I was a behind-the-scenes kind of gal, not at all attracted to the limelight. So, as I pulled up to The Awards, my nerves fluttered in my stomach like butterflies. But despite my anxiety, when I last checked the mirror I didn’t look too shabby. Thank God, Michelle Obama isn’t the only one who looks perfect in a Carolina Herrera gown. As I climbed out of the limo and walked the red carpet, waving at the crowd gathered to cheer on their favorite artists, I thought about everything that had led up to this moment and even

though I was anxious on the inside, on the outside I smiled as if I weren’t the least bit concerned all while praying for two things— please, don’t let me fall in front of all these people, and please, please, don’t let me run into Scrooʝe.

CHAPTER 1 Scrooʝe

LIFE’S A BEACH; I’M JUST PLAYING IN THE SAND. I had to thank Lil Wayne for that one. It was my motto. I had it inscribed on the door of my office right underneath my crown. Why did I have a crown? Because I’m musical royalty, that’s why I’d insisted the government carve my face on Mt. Rushmore. People said I was crazy spending $5 million suing to make it happen. But hey, a king must get his due. Look, I know the Revolution of 1776 liberated America from the grip of kings, but I was a new kind of king, one who’d created an empire no poor boy had any business even dreaming of. Yes, Fitty netted $100 million when Coca-Cola gobbled up 9

Vitaminwater, whoop de damn do. And yes, Jigga sold Rocawear to Iconix for $204 million, big damn deal. Peanuts. I had my eyes on the man Forbes magazine proclaimed the richest human being who ever walked the earth—my own handsome ancestor (and one day DNA tests will prove this!), Mansa Musa, the emperor of Mali whose face adorns history’s most famous map, the Catalan Atlas, where he is pictured seated regally and holding a big-ass gold nugget. The man Forbes estimated to be worth $400 billion. Now, this wasn’t to say my wealth was in Mansa Musa’s neighborhood, truth be told I was still trying to reach Diddy’s financial zip code, but no one could deny what I’d achieved. Musical royalty! Forty million albums sold! A hundred million dollar concert tour! The hottest-selling clothing lines! And my sneaker sales were on the road to making Air Jordan’s look like chump change! It was my destiny. From the moment of my conception, I was enamored with my own distinction. How do you think I was so motivated to beat

those millions of others racing for the prize? I guess the blame for what some deride as my massive ego goes to the boisterous celebrations that swept the country the year I was born. Two hundred and some odd years after the Thirteen Colonies declared independence, I happily broke free from nine months of solitary confinement in my mother’s belly. It was 1984, and once I escaped I couldn’t wait to get the party started. From the first slap on my bare behind and my first scream that soon followed, I absorbed America’s Olympic celebrations like a sponge. I decided right then and there that I wanted my name to live forever. Okay, so that sounds a little much, but imagine if you’d grown up a little black boy named after a Charles Dickens’ character. Your ego might be a little warped too.