Can't Get Enough

by Connie Briscoe

  She entered the locker room and quickly changed into a black T-shirt and baggy workout shorts, then checked her rear end in the full-length mirror to make sure her panty line wasn’t showing, and patted her short natural hairstyle in place. She couldn’t afford the designer workout clothes that most of the women here like Barbara Bentley wore, but she always tried to look halfway decent. She was just thankful that she no longer had to shop at Lane Bryant as she did when she was a size 16.

  She pushed the door open to the weight room and the first person she ran into was Barbara Bentley. They hugged and exchanged air kisses.

  “How are you?” Barbara asked.

  “Oh, hanging in there. Working hard at the salon as always, you know.”

  Barbara touched Pearl’s arm. “I’ve been meaning to ask, you know the house that’s being built across from Jolene Brown’s?”

  Pearl’s eyes grew wide. “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? It gets bigger and fancier every time I drive by.”

  Barbara nodded. “Have you heard anything more about the owners? I thought maybe someone at the salon . . .”

  Pearl nodded eagerly. “I’ve heard plenty more.”

  Barbara leaned in closer. “Yes?”

  Pearl lowered her voice. “Well, I can’t be sure, but Diane Hamilton—you know her? She lives two doors down from Jolene.”

  Barbara nodded.

  “She claims the couple moving into that house is royalty and . . .”

  Barbara’s head snapped back. Royalty? Silver Lake had dozens of illustrious families living inside its gates, from professional ball players to prominent businessmen and local politicians. But royalty? She was impressed. “Really? I had no idea.”

  Pearl nodded vigorously. “A count and countess from some small country in Europe, is what they’re saying. Some place called Chateau de something or other.”

  Barbara’s heart picked up a beat. “You’re kidding. Sounds like they must be white then.”

  “From what I understand, he’s European and she’s African American. She met him over there and they got married.”

  Barbara blinked. A count and countess in Silver Lake! And the countess was black. This would lend a lot of cachet to the neighborhood. Not that Silver Lake needed it, being one of the wealthiest communities in America. But it was a predominantly black community, and some people tended to write off anything mostly black no matter how much money was involved. “This is so exciting. I can’t wait for the party this weekend so we . . .”

  Pearl narrowed her eyes. Party? What party? She hadn’t received an invitation to any party. She tightened her lips. No doubt because she lived on the wrong side of Silver Lake.

  Barbara paused at the expression on Pearl’s face. Oh, dear, she thought. How rude of her to blurt out about the party like that. But she had assumed that everyone in Silver Lake received an invitation. “I’m so sorry, Pearl. I thought . . .”

  Pearl tried to smile. “Don’t worry about it,” she said curtly. “You can fill me in when you come and get your hair done.”

  “Nonsense. I’m sure it was a simple mistake. The new owners probably got our names and addresses from the Silver Lake Neighborhood Association and somehow you were missed. I’ll look into it for you.”

  Pearl wasn’t so sure it was a mistake, since Patrick hadn’t gotten an invitation either. It sounded more like another anti-town-house thing to her. Even the Europeans were in on it.

  OLENE GRABBED HER sports bag and climbed out of her Lexus. She held her keys out to John and dropped them into his extended palm. There was a time when she would have smiled at John as she handed him the keys, but then he started trying to make a lot of small talk with her and that was getting a little too damn familiar. He was the help, not her buddy. She had quickly put a stop to all the chatter by avoiding his eyes. It was good to see that he remembered his place, even though it had been almost a year since she was last at the club.

  She entered the locker room and changed into her workout clothes—a sexy pink Lycra bra top and black short-shorts. She had stopped coming to the club after word got out about her affair with Bradford Bentley. But she was tired of hiding, she thought as she studied herself in the floor-length mirror. She paid a lot of money to belong to this country club—had even taken out a home equity loan to pay the hefty initiation fee—and she had as much right as anyone else to be here. She pushed the door to the locker room open and walked out.

  “DON’T GO TO a lot of trouble, Barbara,” Pearl said.

  “It’s no trouble,” Barbara insisted. “I’m on the Silver Lake Neighborhood Association board and I’ll call . . .” Barbara paused and nearly gasped as she caught a glimpse of Jolene Brown entering the weight room. Barbara was shocked that the woman had the nerve to show her face here. And as usual Jolene looked like a tramp, with her boobs popping up out of that pink workout bra like two brown balloons.

  Pearl noticed a change in Barbara’s demeanor and turned to see what had caused it. She spotted Jolene walking in their direction and quickly looked away. This was the first time she’d seen Jolene up close in ages. She occasionally saw Jolene driving by in her car or from a distance at the supermarket and that was close enough for her.

  “Whoa,” Pearl whispered. “Wonder what made her decide to show up here.” She knew that if anyone disliked Jolene more than she did, it was Barbara Bentley.

  “I’m the last person to ask,” Barbara said. She abruptly stopped speaking as Jolene approached.

  Jolene noticed Barbara and Pearl whispering to each other and she suspected that they were gossiping about her, judging from the cold expressions on their faces. So what. She wasn’t going to let their pettiness bother her. The affair between her and Bradford had ended almost a year ago, and it was time for that anal bitch Barbara Bentley to let it go.

  “Good morning,” Jolene said, smiling brightly as she nodded in the direction of Barbara and Pearl. To her astonishment not only did they both ignore her but Barbara had the gall to turn her body away, and Pearl studied her fingernails as if she had just discovered them. Jolene was furious. Who the hell did they think they were?

  She clenched her fists, whirled around, and stomped all the way back to the locker room. “Fuck,” she muttered as she flopped down on a bench, arms folded. They had no right to keep treating her this way. Especially that salon frump Pearl Jackson. Come to think of it, how the devil could she even afford a membership here? Did Patrick get it for her? He better not have. They were deep in debt and barely making ends meet, with two mortgages, a home equity loan, and saving for college for Juliette. Not to mention the annual fee for her own country club membership.

  Jolene jumped up and opened her locker. She yanked her gym bag out and threw it on the floor. She was so pissed off, she didn’t even feel like working out anymore. Being snubbed by Barbara Bentley was bad enough, but being snubbed by Patrick’s town house trash was intolerable. She never should have come here.

  She slammed the locker door shut with a loud bang, and a woman a few lockers down turned and stared at her. Jolene couldn’t remember the woman’s name but she recognized her as Barbara’s snobby next-door neighbor. She turned pointedly toward the woman and fixed her with a long, icy glare. The woman quickly turned away as Jolene snatched her gym bag off the floor and marched out of the locker room.

  She was halfway to the exit when she changed her mind about leaving right away. She stopped and whirled around. She wasn’t going to take this shit one more minute. She burst through the weight room door and found Barbara and Pearl still talking near the entrance. They both froze the minute they saw her.

  Jolene stomped up and inserted herself between them. Pearl stumbled and had to catch herself to keep from falling as Jolene turned toward Barbara. “I’m tired of being dissed by you all the damn time,” Jolene yelled.

  Barbara coolly looked away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Two women walking by with tennis rackets slowed down and stared in their direc
tion. Jolene ignored them and leaned in closer until her nose was within inches of Barbara’s face. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s been almost a year since I screwed Bradford. Get over it. You don’t have to keep being so fucking rude to me.”

  This was too much, Barbara thought. She pointedly looked Jolene up and down with disapproval. “You’re the last one to talk to me about rudeness,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Jolene put her hands on her hips. “God, you’re such an uptight snob. I . . .”

  “You can call me whatever you want,” Barbara said coolly through a sly smile. “At least my husband didn’t walk out on me.”

  Pearl blinked hard. Oh, lordy. What did Barbara have to go and bring that up for? The last thing she wanted was for Miss Barbara Wannabe to turn her attention to her.

  Jolene backed away. “Fine, Barbara,” she said calmly. “If that’s how you want to be.” Jolene whirled around. “Bitch,” she muttered as she stormed off. She was going to get her annual fee refunded and she was never coming back to this snooty club again. Hell, she might even move out of Silver Lake. She didn’t need this.

  “Whew!” Pearl said, fanning herself with her hand as soon as Jolene was out of sight.

  “God, I can’t stand that woman,” Barbara hissed under her breath.

  “Take it easy, Barbara.”

  “Did you see how she just ignored you?” Barbara asked, still fuming. “And she calls me rude.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Pearl said. “I’d rather be ignored by Jolene anyway. ’Cause she scares the heck out of me.”

  ON WEDNESDAY, BARBARA returned home from the coun-try club as usual and tossed her sports bag on the bed. Thank goodness Jolene had not showed her face again. Jolene’s showing up at the club on Monday had practically ruined Barbara’s entire day. This morning, Barbara felt refreshed and ready to get out and sell some real estate.

  She sat in an armchair near the bedroom fireplace and bent down to untie her tennis shoes as she pushed that unpleasant encounter with Jolene to the back of her mind. The woman was an insane, greedy, immoral social climber. That’s all she was. Barbara had run across more than her share of that kind of woman in dealing with Bradford’s mistresses, and she had become a pro at shoving all thoughts of them aside.

  She noticed that the bed still had not been made up even though she had called the agency and gotten a new temporary cleaning woman after that sordid incident with Ayisha. Were any of them capable of doing anything right? Thank goodness Phyllis would return that afternoon.

  Barbara pulled the top to her workout clothes over her head as she entered her walk-in closet and strolled down the suit section. She picked out a midnight blue, chalk-stripe pantsuit and a wine-colored jacquard suit and held them up at arm’s length. The pantsuit was classic Armani, sophisticated but understated. The jacquard by Albert Nipon was more feminine. Neither was what she really wanted, she thought as her eyes roamed the closet. She had a closing that afternoon, and then she and Noah were meeting with a client for dinner that evening. She wanted to feel young, fresh, hip.

  How ridiculous, she thought, as she rifled through one cedar hanger after another. She had a closet that was bigger than the average person’s bedroom and it was full of designer clothes, yet she couldn’t find anything suitable to wear to the office. She supposed the size of one’s closet had little to do with that, since she could distinctly remember having this very same problem before Bradford had started making millions, back when she could count the number of suits she owned on one hand.

  She finally settled on the Armani, and after a quick shower she applied her makeup, then selected the Mikimoto pearl earrings from her jewelry box and skipped down the stairs. That was when she noticed the scent of tobacco coming from Bradford’s study.

  Her pumps clacked on the marble floor as she crossed the foyer and entered the wood-paneled library. Bradford was sitting at his mahogany desk puffing on a cigar and reading several newspapers all at once—the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and one or two others.

  “Working at home today?” she asked as she inserted her earrings.

  “Just for a while,” he said without looking up from his newspapers. “I have a meeting with a client late this afternoon.”

  “And I have that closing today,” she said. “Then I’m having dinner with Noah and another client. So I’ll be late getting home.”

  He glanced up, and she knew what he was about to ask before he opened his mouth. “Phyllis will be here by noon,” she said. “I left instructions for her to get your dinner before she goes home for the day.”

  “That sounds fine.” He went back to his papers.

  “Bradford, did you hear what I just said? I’m closing on a house today. I may not run a multimillion-dollar technology firm, but this is my first sale and it’s important to me. The least you could do is pretend to show some interest.”

  Bradford looked up again. “Sorry, Barb. It’s just that I have a long day and I was trying to get through the financial pages.” He put his cigar in the ashtray then stood, walked around his desk, and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Congratulations. Sounds like you done good.”

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling with pride.

  “Is the house nearby?”

  Barbara shook her head. “No, it’s a town house on the southern side of Silver Lake, over there near where Pearl lives.”

  Bradford sat down, leaned back in his black leather chair, and puffed on his cigar. “Who’s the buyer?”

  “A young black woman named Sharon. She’s single, in her late thirties. She’s an up-and-coming lawyer but she couldn’t afford to move to this side of Silver Lake. At least not yet.”

  Bradford nodded. “What was the sale price?”

  “Two-sixty.”

  Bradford made a clucking sound. “Is that all those town houses are going for? I don’t see why you bother with a two-bit deal like that, Barb. Your commission will be what? Around fifteen thousand?”

  She shrugged. “Less since I have to split it with the buyer’s agent.”

  He shook his head. “You should be going after clients like the Wrights. They were in the market for something just over a million, weren’t they? Did you ever clean up that mess with them?”

  Barbara winced. She thought about telling him that Bernice Wright was the client she was having dinner with that evening, but Bradford blamed her for a recent real estate fiasco with the Wrights and she was reluctant.

  Bernard Wright was one of Bradford’s business subcontractors, and Bradford had introduced her to the Wrights when he learned that they were hunting for a new house. Barbara preferred clients who had not been referred by her husband, because she wanted to make it as a Realtor on her own. But the real estate business was tough, and she could only afford to work part-time with all the committees and boards she sat on. So she had learned to swallow her pride every once in a while and take any help she could get.

  After weeks of house hunting with Bernice Wright, the couple had finally settled on a gorgeous contemporary-style $1.2-million-dollar house just up the block. They were three days away from closing when Bernice Wright called Barbara late on a Sunday night to say that the deal was off. Barbara was half asleep when she picked up the phone and heard Bernice screaming that she and Bernard were getting a divorce and wouldn’t need a new house.

  Barbara was appalled. She tried to get Bernice to calm down and not act so rashly. Couldn’t she move into the house alone with alimony? Or could they live in separate wings? It was a big house and it was going to be difficult to back out when they were this far along. But Bernice had just caught Bernard in bed with his secretary a few hours earlier, and she had kicked him out. She wanted nothing to do with him.

  A few weeks later, Barbara heard that the Wrights were back together. Then she heard that they were separated again.

  Barbara put her hands on Bradford’s desk and leaned forward. “Honestly, Bra
dford. There wasn’t anything I could do about that.”

  “Not about them separating, but it seems to me that . . .” His voice trailed off as he puffed on his cigar.

  “That what?”

  “Forget it,” Bradford said with a wave of his hand. “It’s not important. I’ll see you when you get back this evening.” He flipped a page of the Wall Street Journal.

  “Dammit, Bradford.” She banged on his desk. “Those silly papers can wait. Look at me.” She snatched one of the newspapers and threw it on the floor.

  He stood up so quickly that his leather chair smashed into the wall behind him. He glared at her. “That wasn’t necessary.”

  “Then how would you suggest I get you to pay attention to me?”

  “Not like that,” he blurted as he picked up his newspaper.

  “I can’t control it if my clients decide to get a divorce and they change their minds about buying a house together.”

  “No, you can’t,” Bradford said tersely as he sat down and put his newspaper back together. “But you could persuade one of them to start looking for something on their own. If they’re getting a divorce, someone has to move out.”

  “Oh, please, Bradford. Don’t you think I’m trying that?”

  “Maybe you need to try harder. I can only judge by the results.”

  She couldn’t take his condescending attitude a minute more. “Well, for your information, Bernice is the client I’m having dinner with tonight.”

  Bradford cocked his head to the side in question.

  “They’ve separated again,” Barbara continued. “She’s looking for something for herself, but she wants to be in Northern Virginia to get away from Bernard. I’m not licensed in Virginia, but Noah is, and he’s going to show her around. If she finds something, we’ll split the commission. I’m going to introduce them to each other tonight.”