The Demise of Alexis Vancamp

by Karen P. Williams

  “I don’t know why he, as manager, didn’t call me and tell me he was putting in his notice,” I said, trying to take the blame off myself. I didn’t need her running and snitching to my dad that I had a big stack of faxes that I hadn’t gotten to.

  “Well, I checked all your voice mails and he had also called and informed you.”

  I rolled my eyes at her and snapped, “Well I’m over six buildings. I am bombarded with work.”

  “No, I understand. That’s why I am here. So what do you want to do?”

  “Well, I have a week to figure something out. I’m going to have to start interviewing for the complex, which will be kind of hard because I absolutely do not want anyone who lives in there working for my father’s company. None of them can be trusted. I need you to post an ad in the Penny Saver and Press Telegram about the manager position. Pay is an additional one thousand dollars outside of the rent.” “Okay, I’m on it.”

  Although I didn’t want her in my space or in my face, I had to admit that Marisol was a hard worker. And she did take the load off of me. With her being there, I was guaranteed to be able to get everything done.

  “I’m going to head out.”

  “Well, how will I be able to lock up? Because I planned on staying at least until eight to get this work done,” she said. “That way when you come in tomorrow, you will be up to date with everything.”

  That would be perfect. That way I could sleep in and maybe start taking three days off a week as opposed to two so Santana and I could start traveling more. Maybe it was going to work out, Marisol being there. I pulled the keys for the office off my chain and handed them to her. “Okay.”

  “What time do you usually come in in the morning, Alexis?”

  “Usually by eight.”

  “Girl.” She laughed. “Come in at ten.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She waved a hand. “Yes. I’m an early bird anyhow. I’ll get the office started. Don’t worry.”

  “Okay.” I shut down my computer, grabbed my things, and left.

  “Good night!” she yelled.

  “Good night.” I said it sincerely and I meant it.

  Chapter 17

  I went to Fresh & Easy to pick up something to cook for dinner. I had energy and felt refreshed with Marisol doing most of the work. I wanted to make some fish tacos with mango salsa. Santana had never had my fish tacos and I knew it would be the perfect thing to make for him.

  I grabbed all the items I needed, paid for them, and went home. I couldn’t wait to see my baby.

  When I made it home, I discovered the door was unlocked so I slipped in with my things easily. Before I could even get completely in the door I heard, “Hey, sis!”

  I damn near dropped what was in my hands when I saw my sister stretched out on one of my couches. “What the fuck are you doing in my house?” I demanded.

  She placed her arms behind her head. “Relax. Alexis. And it’s our daddy’s house. Don’t you forget that. Working for him doesn’t make you the owner of shit you know.”

  “Stop playing with me!”

  “Oh. I’m not, dear sister. Mom is being a real bitch. I decided I didn’t want to go back to Spelman, or any other college for that matter, and she is highly upset about that.” She sat up on the couch and crossed her legs. I scanned her from head to feet. She was barely dressed in a tank top and a little-ass skirt. Half of her ass was hanging out.

  “What does this have to do with you being here?”

  “I’m getting to that. Mom kicked me out and said unless I came up with a plan B to dropping out of school I was kicked out.” She added, “She said plan B was another school.”

  “And Dad just let her kick you out?”

  “You know Daddy has no freaking backbone. She took my ATM card, too. Thus, here I am. Until I figure out what I am going to do, I shall be here.”

  “Well, you’re not staying,” I interjected.

  “I’ve nowhere else to go.”

  “And you think that is my problem?”

  “Baby!” It was Santana.

  I softened my voice. “Coming,” I called. I set my purse, attaché case, and the bags on the couch. I gave her an evil look before walking into my bedroom.

  “Coming,” she mocked.

  I ignored the bitch and continued walking until I got to my destination. “Hey, baby.”

  “Hey.” He was sitting at my computer desk, on the Internet.

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to get rid of Bria.”

  He turned around in the chair. “Naw. Don’t do that.”

  “What do you mean don’t do that?” I snapped.

  “Calm your voice down.” He looked at me with a steady expression.

  I took a deep breath and obeyed. “Sorry, babe. But she needs to go. You saw how she acted at dinner and I told you how she carried on in church.”

  “I know. I don’t like the little bitch either. I wish I could slap the shit out of her. You see where I’m at? Away from her ass. But that’s your sister. You can’t just throw her out with no place to go. Both of y’all are sheltered. She ain’t going to survive in the streets. She will end up in a damn trash bag, trying to prove a message to y’all parents. Then you will be kicking yourself in the ass for not letting her stay.”

  He was right. Despite her mouth and foul attitude, I loved my little sister and I would never forgive myself if something happened to her. Plus, I told myself, the living situation wouldn’t be permanent.

  “Okay, baby. You’re right. I will tell her she can stay.”

  “Just keep her ass away from me. That way I don’t nut up.”

  Well, since my baby was in school during the day, I knew they wouldn’t be around each other all too much. So they wouldn’t be going at each other’s throats while I wasn’t there. Now, when we were all home, I knew it was inevitable that they would get into it. We would just have to deal with it.

  When I went back into the living room I saw her stretched out on my couch, on my home phone. “Yeah, girl. I said fuck that. I’m not going back there.”

  “Bria.”

  She continued talking like I wasn’t standing in front of her calling her name.

  “Bria!”

  She looked at me and took the phone away from her ear. “What?”

  “You can stay. But I’m letting you know now that I’m not putting up with your shit. Neither will Santana. I’m also not going to clean up after your privileged ass.”

  “Nor will I do any of those things, sister. But don’t forget, you’re just as privileged as I am. We are cut from the same cloth.” She batted her eyelashes at me.

  “Yeah, well, I actually graduated from college. And I’m working.”

  At this point she was back on the phone as if I weren’t even talking.

  I fumed and grabbed the grocery bags. I went into the kitchen and started preparing dinner. I still didn’t want her ass here. I hoped she came to her senses and figured out what she wanted to do with her sad-ass life so she could get the hell out.

  I turned my focus off of her and on preparing dinner. I washed the fish, seasoned it, and put it into a frying pan with a little oil so it could cook. Then I started chopping up the mangoes, tomatoes, onion, one small chili pepper, and cilantro for the mango salsa. Once I had everything chopped, I put it into a bowl, squeezed a whole lemon over it, and seasoned it with salt and pepper. I then put it in the fridge so it could chill while the food cooked. I checked the fish; it was cooking on low heat.

  “I know, girl!” She was so fucking loud.

  I turned on my iPod, which sat on my dock on the kitchen counter, and turned it to Tank. Santana came into the kitchen and slipped behind me. He rubbed on my bottom and kissed me on my neck. I smiled and turned the fish over.

  “Ewww. Too much PDA!” she yelled from the living room at us . “You have an infant in here for God’s sake!”

  I wanted to pull up a video of her on WorldStarHi-phop. com, where she was at a club and slid
down a stripper pole with absolutely no panties. Her bush was out for everyone in the club to see and she wasn’t the least bit upset about it. She giggled!

  Santana felt my body tense up. “Relax, babe. Ignore her ass.”

  I smiled and kissed him before moving away so I could fry the corn tortillas.

  “How long before dinner’s done?” he asked.

  “Ten minutes.”

  I poured a little oil in the frying pan and waited for it to heat up before putting two tortillas in the pan. As they began to bubble, I grabbed the fresco crema out of the fridge.

  “Call me when it’s done.” He patted my ass and walked out of the kitchen.

  “Okay.” I flipped the tortillas over, waited another minute, took those two out, and added two more. I repeated this until I had fried a total of eight shells. I knew Santana would want four, I ate two, and I didn’t care how many Bria’s ass wanted; she would get two as well, whether she wanted more or not.

  Matter of fact, I served her first so she wouldn’t eat with us at the table. I had no time for her bullshit. When she walked in the kitchen I silently handed her a plate of food.

  “Yummy! Thanks, sis!” When I looked at her she didn’t seem like she was trying to be an asshole. She looked like she was sincerely saying it.

  So my face softened and I said, “What do you want to drink? Juice or soda?”

  “Juice please.”

  I went to the fridge, grabbed a can of Ocean Spray cranberry juice and handed it to her.

  By the time she scarfed her food down, I had Santana’s plate ready. I made sure it looked neat and had a nice presentation. I had stuffed plenty of fish in his shells. I set his plate on the table, knowing he had to have his Henny to go with it. I set it out for him also. I had bottled water.

  “Babe,” I called, “the food is ready.”

  He came right out. As we ate, my little sister stayed on the phone in the living room, tuning us out. We did the exact same thing. Still, her being there bothered the hell out of me. I knew no matter how nice she was I didn’t want her there. I wanted no woman alone with my man. Not even my grandmother. I just didn’t.

  For the next couple days, I observed Marisol. True to her word, she was a really hard worker. Things were back to the order that I used to have before I got so wrapped in Santana and pretty much became a wifey. She took and screened calls for me, checked my e-mail, and, since it was the beginning of the month, she even handled the bank deposits. She went through the same anal ritual I taught her to do, which was photocopying every check and placing it in a file for that specific complex, with the month and year labeled on it. She went over all the maintenance requests and the amounts managers charged to make sure they were accurate and the managers weren’t trying to pull the okey doke. She made sure all new tenants were properly screened, running their credit and whatnot. Our policy was that any potential clients had to come see us and apply, to avoid managers putting friends and family members in the vacant apartments and not running a thorough credit check on them.

  Marisol was cool with all of this. She was like a clone of the old me. When it came to financial matters, I did still check it all out. I reviewed the photocopies of the checks and made sure every check for each tenant was accounted for, and I then made sure the totals matched the deposits. They did. She did drive-bys to all the properties to make sure the property was clean and the lawns were maintained. It was something I told her she would need to do several times a week. By doing this, it ensured that the managers kept up with their buildings, because they never knew when I was going to pop up. They never wanted to be caught slipping. This kept the buildings clean and tidy, the way my father liked them to be. By her now doing the majority of this, I always came home refreshed with a lot of energy to make love to Santana, and to go on more outings during the week when he wasn’t in school. Today we were supposed to go for a walk on the beach when I got off.

  As I rushed to my door after work, I couldn’t help but smell marijuana. Although I didn’t touch the stuff, from time to time Santana smoked it. There was also music blasting. I expected to find Santana in the living room, smoking, but not my fast-ass sister sitting right next to him, taking a long pull from a blunt.

  Santana had his eyes closed, clearly buzzed without a care in the world, bobbing his head to the music. I slammed the door closed and angrily tossed my purse on the couch.

  Santana opened his eyes and saw me. “Hey, babe.” They were super tight from his high.

  My sister blew out smoke and looked my way. “Hey.” She held the blunt out for me to take.

  I gave her an evil look before glancing around my living room and taking in how messy it was. It made my blood boil! “Are you serious right now, Bria?”

  “Huh?” She looked at me, confused. Her eyes were tighter than Santana’s.

  “Look at this mess! I’m tired and I warned you already. I’m not your mom and I’m not going to clean up after you.”

  “Let me go in the room. I don’t want to hear this shit and get my high fucked up,” Santana said. He got off the couch and brushed past me with no kiss, hug, hi . . . Nothing.

  I watched him leave, surprised that he would say that. He should be on my side. Was I the only one who saw the mess of my sister’s clothes and shoes thrown all around my living room? All of her cosmetics were scattered all over my marble coffee table like she was going out and couldn’t figure out what she was going to wear or what shade of lipstick looked the fucking best!

  But I didn’t want to argue with Santana or for him to feel like I was taking it out on him.

  “You’re so naïve, big sis. Put your bottom lip back in. He’s leaving because when a person has a good high or buzz, the last thing they want is to hear a person bitching, regardless of the reason they are bitching. When he is putting it on you do you want mom bitching in your ear? Huh?”

  “Shut the fuck up. You don’t ever mention what I do with my man.”

  “Sorry. I was just using that for an example since he told me you never get high with him, you know.”

  “Clean up my house now! And you have a room to use so keep your shit out of here!” She had been using Arianna’s room since her stay.

  She lazily got up off the couch. Once again, she was half dressed. She wore a sports bra and a pair of booty shorts.

  “Stop parading yourself in front my man half naked like a whore, understand?”

  She got on her knees and shoved all her cosmetics on my table into a Caboodle makeup container. “Girl, please. Insecurity is so not attractive. He ain’t looking at me. I’m like his little sister. And you know what? Santana ain’t so bad.”

  I gripped my hands around her throat. “You better get your situation together because you won’t be here for that much longer.”

  “Get your hands off of me.” She yanked herself away, but not before I saw the fear in her face. I walked away, pissed the hell off.

  The kitchen was also a mess, with various plates and bowls of half-eaten cereal on the table. Bitch was having a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Well, I was the principal today and her ass was going back to class. If I have to school her ass.

  Despite my anger, I knew I had to make a good meal. Santana would accept no less even if I was tired, and since I didn’t want to lose him, I had to always deliver. But it was hard when my sister had managed to agitate the hell out of me. I cooked stuffed pasta shells that were filled with shrimp, spinach, and ricotta cheese. When they were done, I poured marinara sauce over them. I melted real butter along with some crushed garlic in the microwave and poured it over a fresh loaf of French bread.

  Santana came into the kitchen and sat down in silence, and I served him. I made myself a light plate and sat down across from him. Bria came in the room with a Love Pink sweat suit on and her hair pulled into a bun. She grabbed a clean plate and piled food on it. She then turned to walk into the living room.

  Santana said, “Come eat at the table with us.”

  My j
aw clamped down and my chewing stopped. I tried to keep my agitation off my face as she came looking like some innocent saint to the table.

  Why is he being nice to her ass now? I wondered. I guessed she had managed to win him over in the past couple days. I mean the attitude she had shown him back when they first met she didn’t show him now. And that was cool because there could have been serious drama between the two of them . . . But still . . . her ass hadn’t won me over. As she ate enthusiastically and kept saying that I was such a good cook, I refused to say thank you and just stared down at my plate.

  Santana didn’t seem to pay me any mind. He ate with relish, tearing it up like my sister. They both ate more than usual. I attributed that to the weed.

  “Hey, Alexis?” Bria asked.

  “What?”

  “Have you heard the new Nicki Minaj song?”

  “No.” I had.

  “You ain’t heard it? That shit is banging.” She stood and started singing:

  “Bitches talk shit and they ain’t saying nothing.

  A hundred mutherfuckers can’t tell me nothing.

  I beez in the trap be beez in the trap.”

  As she rapped, Santana put down his fork, tossed his hands in the air, and rocked his head from side to side.

  “Haaaay!” she sang before sitting down.

  Santana laughed.

  “Hey. Santana, what does that part mean?”

  “Trap means a trap house. It’s a place where you sell dope or illegal items. But it’s usually dope.”

  “Ohhh.” She looked so enlightened. “You ever been in a trap house before?”

  He chuckled. “I have.”

  “Gangsta!” she yelled.

  “Girl, you crazy,” was all he said between chuckles.

  It was like I wasn’t even at the table. But when Bria caught my evil stare, she stopped talking and gobbled up the rest of her food. She then left the table and went to her room.

  Not soon after, Santana got up as well, which disappointed me because I was used to us having intimate dinners, when we both went over how our days were and what exactly we did. But I guessed he had no real interest in doing that with me today. I didn’t like it but what could I do? I instead got up and started putting the food away and washed the dishes.