“Ladies and gentlemen, I am so excited to introduce Eminem and Regina Contini!” a TRL VJ screamed as Marshall and Regina walked out on the new set and to the screams of fans. After Marshall spent the weekend making up for the girlfriends, it was back to work on Monday, with Regina’s first television appearance. She’d been nervous as all hell and it took quite a bit of convincing on Marshall’s part to get her to calm down.

“Well hello and welcome back, it’s been a while for you up here Eminem, and a first time welcome to the lovely lady here, miss Regina Contini, it is so nice to meet you,” the VJ said shaking her hand. Marshall thanked him but left the bulk of the conversation up to Regina.

“So we heard, this is your first trip to New York,” the VJ asked.

“Yes, I’m a native of Little Vale California, right outside LA. And I love the city, it’s been great being here. Marshall’s been showing me all the great spots.” Regina felt like a fool. She had no friggen clue what the hell to say. Marshall had told her just to answer the questions as they came, but this was ridiculous.

“So what has it been like the last few weeks, working with Eminem, and getting your deal. The word is that everything went down in only a couple days,” the VJ asked.

“It has been surreal, only a few weeks ago I was working as a waitress and now I’m working on tracks and doing the video, I still wake up and wonder what I’m doing here. But yeah, everything happened in like, what two days, Marshall?” Regina asked.

“Yup, she showed me up, Biz took it to Dre and he signed her that morning,” Marshall replied.

“You showed him up?”

“He asked me my opinion on a rap, told him it sucked and then he threw me in the booth and told me to do better if I could, and well, I did.” The audience laughed.

“Did you trash the rap?” The VJ asked curiously.

“I had to, there’s no arguing with her,” Marshall replied and Regina just shook her head laughing. Eventually things got better, the questions didn’t seem as stupid and it became rather fun.

“We’ve got a couple questions from the audience, you up for it?” the VJ asked Regina.

“Bring ‘em on,” Regina replied.

“Hi, I’m Lena Fanero, just got to say, I love the video, and my question is, when you put out your album, is it going to be more along the lines of Eminem’s style, and is it going to be all rap?”

“Well, to be quite honest, I’m not exactly sure the what the whole feel of the album is going to be, but Marshall and I, we do come from different ends of the spectrum, and are styles are a bit different. I’m going to be doing a lot of writing to figure out what I want to do. As far as just rap, no, I do want to sing a few things, but most likely the bulk of the album will be rap.”

“Hi, my name is Hannah, and I just wanted to ask, I heard that you did a lot of writing, and just wanted to know what kind of writing you did, and for what.”

“Oh now that’s a good one, come on Regina,” Marshall said with a laugh. Regina grinned nervously and replied.

“I do write a lot, and mostly I write articles for the Hip Hop and Rap Association that I started about five years ago. The articles are written to bolster up the genre of rap and hip-hop itself, and to argue against censorship.” Regina replied.

“Wow, it looks like you’re looking to take over,” the VJ remarked.

“All I can say is don’t get into an argument with her, she is the expert on rap and hip-hop, she’s listened to probably every rap song out there and analyzed it,” Marshall replied laughing.

“We’re gonna take a commercial break, and then we’ll be back with our number one video, and our guests Eminem and Regina Contini!” The cameraman gave the thumbs up that they were off camera and Regina took a deep breath. They were only supposed to be on set for about fifteen minutes, including the commercial break, and long enough to introduce the number one video.

“I don’t think I can do this much longer!” she said with a nervous laugh.

“Come on, lets get a drink,” Marshall said laughing.

“Regina! Over here!” someone called.

“Hm?” she said turning to the voice. A couple of the people in the crowd were calling her over.

“Just come on,” Marshall said shaking his head as he followed the VJ off the set. They had at least five minutes, the commercials on MTV taking longer than any of the shows ever did.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Regina replied walking over to the girls who were nearly jumping up and down when they saw Regina approaching them.

“Hi, what can I do for you?” she asked.

“Oh wow, I didn’t think you’d actually come talk to us,” the one girl, who Regina remembered asked the first question.

“Lena, right, why wouldn’t I?” Regina asked with a smile.

“We just love your rap, it’s great,” the other girl said with a grin.

“Thank you very much, that’s very sweet of you, and you are?” Regina asked holding out her hand.

“I’m uh, Maralyn, Marlyn Ansly,” she replied, completely shocked as she put her hand out to shake Regina’s.

“Nice to meet you Maralyn,” Regina replied, “What brings you to New York, or are you two natives?”

“Actually we live about two hours away, but when we heard you were going to be here, we hurried and luckily got tickets.” Lena replied

“You girls friends?” Regina asked.

“Yeah, since like middle school,” Lena grinned.

“Reminds me of me and my best friend Ernelle,” Regina laughed. Marshall stood off camera watching Regina talk with the girl, not understanding why she gave a crap what they had to say. Dre came up beside him and watched Regina interacting with the fans as well.

“Think she’s gonna be popular?” Dre asked with a laugh.

“You kidding? She’s done one song and already they love her,” Marshall replied.

“You think we could get a picture with you?” Lena asked sheepishly.

“Or an autograph?” Maralyn asked. Regina was a little taken aback, after all, she didn’t think she could be this popular in as little as week.

“Uh, sure, why not,” Regina nodded and called the bodyguard over to take the girls’ camera.

“Come out here,” Regina said stepping back slightly. They took the picture and Regina even signed a New York post card for each of the girls.

“We’re back on in thirty seconds!” the cameraman called.

“Sorry ladies, got to get back, it was nice meeting you!” Regina said giving them each a hug.

“Thanks!” they replied as they climbed back up into their seats. Marshall and the VJ came back out on the set and resumed their places.

“What was that all about?” the VJ asked Regina with a smile.

“I just talked to a couple girls in the audience, that’s all,” Regina replied.

“You’re on in five, four three, two…”

“Hi, and we’re back with our number one video coming right up, and our guests Eminem and Regina Contini, a new rapper who just debuted this last Friday, rapping with everyone’s favorite bad boy Eminem in ‘Bangin’, which has already soared to number one on the charts. Congratulations by the way on that. And before the break some of the audience were asking a couple questions, and we have time for a couple more,” the VJ rattled this off and a guy in the front row stood up with a mike.

“Hey how you doing, I’m Marcos, I was just wondering if you were single?” he seemed quite smooth, as if he would have been able to get a date out of her just like that.

“Sorry Marcos, I’m involved,” Regina replied.

“Yeah man, keep the eyes above the neck,” Marshall added.

“Too bad, too bad,” Marcos replied as he sat down and handed the mike to another guy in the back row.

“So Marshall, are we to assume that you are the guy?” the VJ asked.

“Yes, he is,” Regina said squeezing Marshall’s arm slightly and smiling.

“Sorry Marcos, and the rest of the guys, take a collective sigh of disappointment, okay, we got time for one more question,” the VJ said pointing to another guy.

“Yo, I’m Audley, just wondering, you got any tats?”

“Nope,” Regina replied.

“Any reason why not?” he asked.

“I’ve thought about it for a long time, I’m not afraid of getting one, I just haven’t really decided what I want to get yet.”

“What do you think you’ll get if you do decide to get one?”

“For my first one I’ll probably get a butterfly, for my little sister Catalina, her nickname is Mariposa, Spanish for butterfly. Which by the way, I should give a shout out to her, mi Mariposa, my brother Ricky and the rest of my big family who are probably watching me right now,” Regina replied.

“All right. Well, since you two are here, and it’s time to introduce the number one video, we’ll let you do the honors of introducing your own video!” The audience roared as Marshall did the introduction and the video started playing in the background. The cameraman gave the signal and the camera went to do the usual shout outs with the audience.

“Okay guys, we got to get going,” Dre said motioning to them.

“We coming,” Marshall said walking off the set waving at the audience as he went.

“Bye everybody, thanks!” Regina called and caught Lena and Maralyn’s gaze on the way out.

“Have a good one girls!” she said waving to them, and it looked as though they were having a heart attack on the spot.

“Nice touch Regina,” Dre said when she returned to the green room where they had been before the show.

“On what?” she asked confused.

“Talking to the girls, might get you a better image with the fans than he’s got,” Dre said motioning to Marshall, who just waved his hand at Dre and shook his head.

Regina just shrugged and said, “I didn’t do anything that I normally wouldn’t have done.”

“Good, then that’s the way you need to be all the time. You did a great job out there, really,” Dre said hitting her lightly on the shoulder in his approval.

“Thanks, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it, really, I’m just glad I didn’t say anything too stupid,” she laughed.

They finished up business and went outside to get in the limo. The bodyguards fell in line around her and Marshall while he clutched her hand in his. Fans and paparazzi were packed behind barricades and all screaming their names. Regina caught sight of a young blond woman holding a girl about the same age as Catalina in her arms. The little girl held a sign high over her head proclaiming, “THE FIRST BIG REGINA FANS!”

Regina thought that too cute to ignore.

“You got five minutes,” Dre said as he caught Regina’s gaze and signaled to a security guard to get the woman and the girl. The crowd was extremely loud but they managed to get through. Regina tried to say something to the woman but it was too loud. She thought for a second then stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly. The crowd quieted down.

“Yo! I’m trying to talk to these nice ladies here, keep it down for a minute!” Regina called as she turned back to the girls.

“Hi, how are you?” Regina asked.

“Good,” the little girl said looking up at her. Regina smiled down at her and squatted down to her height.

“And what’s your name?” Regina asked. The only sounds were that of cameras clicking and flashing.

“I’m Rose, that’s my big sister Lily. You’re the really cool lady who can rap,” the little girl replied. Regina laughed slightly and smiled at her.

“Well it is so nice to meet you Rose. Tell me, did you and your big sister come out here, just to see me?” Regina asked.

“Yeah, of course we did, that yellow haired man is scary, and he’s not very nice,” Rose said in a whisper but everyone heard anyway and the crowd was laughing heartily.

“You are a very funny little girl. You are very lucky to have such a nice big sister though,” Regina said smiling over to Lily.

“Yeah, we do lots of stuff together. Do you have a little sister?” Rose asked.

“In fact I do, and we do lots of special things together too.”

“Could you sign an autograph for me?” Rose asked pulling a little kid’s pocket notebook out of her pocket with a pen.

“You bet I could,” Regina replied taking the notebook and signing for her.

“Oh, and one for Lily too?” Rose asked. Regina nodded and turned to another page and wrote another autograph.

“Here you go Rose, and thanks for coming out to see me,” Regina said holding out her hand, Rose shaking it before Regina stood up.

“Lily, thanks for coming out,” Regina said shaking the big sister’s hand as well.

“Oh thank you, for talking to us,” Lily replied nervously as Rose pulled at her pocket.

“Wait, Regina, could we get a picture with you?” Rose asked pulling out the camera.

“Certainly, Eddie, do me a favor,” Regina said to one of the guards, handing him the camera. Regina picked up Rose, and once balancing on her hip, put her arm around Lily.

“Thanks so much Regina,” Lily said again before they finally said goodbye.

“Any time. Bye Rose!” Regina said waving to the little girl before she climbed into the limo.