American billionaire Oprah Winfrey brought Barbadian recording artist Robyn Rihanna Fenty into her home last Friday, telling her, "Stay as long as you need," and "Just call me Mama Winfrey, dear."
It was late, so media mogul Winfrey told Rihanna to go upstairs and rest, saying the storm must have worn her out and telling her she looked as if she'd been "trying to carry the whole world on your shoulders.
"The talking can wait until morning," sighed Winfrey, the former talk show host, as she made eye contact with the unusually shy Rihanna. "Leave your wet clothes in the bathtub and I'll get them tomorrow."
Winfrey had already left fresh clothes out and made up the guest room for Rihanna earlier that evening, confident in her intuition that the headstrong pop star would return, drenched and downtrodden, despite having spoken so angrily to Winfrey earlier that week.
"Lord knows what I'm going to do with her," Winfrey said, shaking her head as she watched Rihanna quietly and obediently climb the stairs. "Too stubborn for her own good," she said, glancing sideways at husband Stedman with the slightest hint of a smile on her face. "Thinks she owns the world, and then she's shocked when it doesn't do quite what she expected."
Stedman stood by the fireplace, his arms crossed and brow furrowed, in the same place he'd been 20 minutes before when Rihanna showed up at the back door, dripping wet and clutching her old, grievously torn backpack like it was all she had left.
"She won't want to talk to you," Stedman said, moving to sit down at the nearby coffee table and pouring them both a glass of wine. "Help is the last thing she wants."
"Just like her mother," Winfrey said. "But she'll learn to listen, and then maybe she'll find out she's not so alone after all." She took the glass of merlot and looked hopefully up toward the guest room, where Rihanna fast asleep on the new linens. "It'd be too much of a shame to watch all that potential go to waste."
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