by J. D. Mason
“More what?”
“Could be nothing. Could be a bunch of old men sitting around in a room, playing poker, smoking cigars, drinking, and getting laid by a few, down-on-their-luck, working girls.” She shrugged. “No big deal. But, my instinct tells me that it could be something else. What if it is?”
“I don’t care. Even if it is more than that, what the hell do you expect me to do?”
Lonnie just stared at her. “I swear. Sometimes, I feel like I’m the hardened criminal in this duo. Open your eyes, girl! With everything you’ve been through, don’t you ever want to lash out and get back at those bastards? You did it with Mary!”
“I didn’t touch her! I did not lay a finger on her!”
“No, you didn’t. But you didn’t exactly call 9-1-1 either when she fell. Did you?”
Angry tears filled Desi’s eyes.
“Why didn’t But?” Lonnie challenged. “I know why? And deep down, so do you.”
Desi braced herself against the wall and stood up. “We’ve had too much to drink,” she slurred. “You want some pie?” She stumbled into the kitchen.
“One down, Desi. All I’m saying is that you’ve got the momentum in your favor, the wind’s against your back. I believe in karma, and I don’t believe in accidents. You saw him for a reason, and you followed him for a reason.”
Desi sat back down with a whole sweet potato pie, and two forks. “What’s done is done. I need to move on!” She dug into the pie with her fork. “I can’t change what happened, Lonnie. But, I got paid, so…”
“Is that all it takes, Des? A little money and it’s all good? Twenty-five years of your life gone, eaten away like termites eat wood, and that’s it? Get out of jail and buy yourself a pair of Jimmy Choos and a gold watch for time served? You really believe that?”
“I want to believe that.” She tried swallowing the pie she’d shoved into her mouth.
“But you know, deep down, it’s not true.”
Desi and Lonnie locked gazes.
“He didn’t know who you were?”
Desi shook her head. “I don’t think he did.”
“He didn’t know, because you never meant shit to him. He washed his hands of you the minute they hauled you out of his courtroom.”
A tear streamed down Desi’s cheek. “It doesn’t matter.”
Lonnie scooted closer to her and drove her fork into the pie. “This looks good.”
Lonnie’s dark eyes locked onto Desi’s and dared her to turn away. “The difference between Desi now and Desi twenty-six years ago, is money. Lots of money and freedom. The difference between that bastard and you, is that he washed his hands of you as soon as he slammed that gavel down and they took you away. You on the other hand, can’t let it go, Desi. You can try to lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me. I see it in you. I feel the pain of what you’ve been through.”
“But I got mine, Lonnie.” Desi swallowed. “I’ve gotten the money. I’ve gotten my inheritance.”
“That money can never buy back what he took from you, Desi, and you know it. You lost a lifetime. You can’t put a price on that, Des. People like him want you to believe that you’ll take the money and run so that he can rest a little bit better at night thinking that you’ve somehow been repaid for your services, and it eases his conscience. But you know the truth, even if you don’t want to admit it out loud. You hate him. You hate him for what he did to you.”
Unexpected tears fell from her eyes. “So, I hate him. What good does that do? It eats me up, but it doesn’t mean shit to people like him.”
“Then make it mean something,” Lonnie said, carefully. “Don’t let him rest easy. Let him know that you aren’t going to let him make you just another unpleasant memory, and that you’re not going to crawl off to a corner and curl up and die without making a fuss.”
“What are you talking about?”
The magic of Lonnie was her fearlessness, her willingness to go wherever she needed to go to do whatever she needed to do.
“You get even, Desi!”
Desi looked at her and laughed. “You watch too many soap operas, Lonnie. People don’t do that shit in real life.”
“People with money do. Your pockets are deeper than his, Desi. You’ve got the resources to find the dirty, if you look hard enough.”
“You really think that’s going to make me feel better? You think that finding shit on him will make up for what he did to me?”
Lonnie nodded. “I think it could be a good place to start.”
Beauty
Seventy-year-old Olivia Gatewood poured cream into her tea, dropped two cubes of sugar into it, leaned back in her chaise, and gazed out over the expanse of her property. She had always lived a privileged life, and most times, she took it for granted. For years, she’d felt herself slipping away, fading like an old photograph, and because of that, she made certain to pay close attention to the small things that meant the most to her, like the view from the window of her bedroom, the scent of her favorite flowers, the feel of silk against her skin, and memories, which she tried to recapture in her journal to save and relive again when they lost the vividness of color.
Occasionally glancing at her bedroom door, she worked hard to quell the anticipation of seeing him walk through it nearly thirty years after his death. Her gaze drifted over to the clock sitting on the mantel of the fireplace. Four o’clock. Julian came home every day at four. She sipped her tea, but then gradually began to give in to worry as the minutes ticked away. That familiar anxious knot blossomed in her stomach. Come home to me, she pleaded in her thoughts. He was a prompt man, a regimented man. Julian was never late except when he—Ten after four. Olivia carefully placed her teacup down on the table, leaned back in her chair, and retreated into her memories.
That small corner of northeast Texas was a big, small town. She and Ida Green had met years before in an encounter too insignificant to matter until years later, the night Julian died. The first time she’d ever laid eyes on Ida, the two of them were just girls. Back then, Olivia didn’t know her name, and she didn’t care to know it. They had no relationship, other than that of patron and clerk. She’d crossed through two towns to get a tear on a dress mended to keep her parents from finding out that it had been ripped in the first place by a boy too zealous for his own good.
Henthorne, Texas, where she lived, wasn’t as small as Blink, but it was small enough and people had a tendency to gossip, even about something as insignificant as a torn dress. Being that Olivia’s father was the first and only colored doctor in Bond County, made her name very popular in gossip circles, and all sorts of stories would’ve been manufactured as to how her expensive dress managed to get ripped down the side seam at the zipper, before the seamstress in Henthorne had even handed her a receipt. So, she took it to Blink. Nobody knew her in Blink.
The darker woman behind the counter examined the material, and then looked up at Olivia over the rims of her reading glasses.
“This is silk,” she said, sounding surprised.
“Of course it’s silk,” Olivia retorted. “The finest silk from India. It’s one of a kind, designed just for me, which is why you need to take your time and make sure you don’t make a mistake when you fix it.”
Thinking back on her candor back then, Olivia couldn’t help but smile, and then take a sip of her tea. She’d been eighteen, maybe nineteen, with a sassy mouth that lent itself to getting her all sorts of sideways glances. Olivia’s flippancy was excused, though, because of who her father was, and because she was beautiful. She was a lighter-skinned black, with sandy-gold-colored hair that she wore straight, and wrapped with a wide ribbon. Most men stared when they saw her, black or white, it didn’t matter. Back then, Olivia was like a beautiful, ripe apple, hanging from the highest branch at the top of the tallest tree, that all men wanted, but none of them could reach. And she knew it.
Olivia was concerned that the woman wouldn’t be able to mend silk, when a younger version of the woman
pushed through the door and lumbered into the room to the other side of the counter. She stood next to the older version of herself, placing a package on top of the counter. She didn’t so much as glance at Olivia or excuse herself before she started talking.
“Miss Parker only had three yards left of the fabric you wanted, Momma.” The girl disappeared through the small doorway behind her mother.
A long rope of hair hung down one of the girl’s shoulders across her breast.
“Where’s my change, Ida Fay?” her mother called out.
“She didn’t give me any,” the girl said. “She said we owed her money, so she kept it.”
“Was that a hairpiece?” Olivia suddenly asked, enviously. Of course it had to have been a hairpiece.
The seamstress shot a look at her. “No. That’s her hair.” The woman almost sounded offended.
Olivia stared, infuriated, at the woman. She seemed to realize that her tone had been unacceptable quickly, and smiled apologetically to Olivia.
“I can have this mended, just like it was new, by Friday.”
The younger girl came back and stood next to her mother behind the counter and traced her fingertips over the expensive fabric. “It’s beautiful,” she said, under her breath. She shot a shy gaze up at Olivia who stood a head taller.
“My mother ordered it from a famous designer,” Olivia said, proudly. “It’s from Paris.”
The girl batted her eyes, and frowned. “Paris, Texas?”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Paris, France,” she said smugly.
That girl was so simple, and so country. She was so ordinary. But she was harmless, and sweetness resonated from her because she was no threat to Olivia. She was no threat to any woman, really. Olivia walked out of that shop, fairly confident that she’d get her dress back as good as new, and with no thought whatsoever to the girl with the long, braided hair.
“Time for your medication, Mrs. Gatewood.” Abby, her day nurse sat down across from her and placed a silver serving tray down on the small table between them.
“My husband was a peculiar man,” Olivia said, all of a sudden, to Abby.
The woman smiled, nodded, and handed her a small white cup filled with pills. Olivia poured them into her mouth. Abby handed her a clear glass filled with water and waited patiently for Olivia to sip it and wash down her medication.
“You can never be certain as to what goes on in a man’s mind,” she continued, staring intensely into Abby’s eyes.
“No, ma’am,” Abby agreed.
A woman like Ida Green had meant nothing to Olivia the day she’d first met that girl. She hadn’t meant a thing to her the day she drove back to Blink to pick up her dress either. They had stood less than a foot from each other, while Ida showed her the place on the dress that had been torn, and how well her mother had repaired it.
“You can’t even tell it was ripped,” she’d said to Olivia.
Olivia paid the girl and left, and it never occurred to her that she’d ever have reason to see or talk to her ever again.
She sat reflective in her thoughts for several moments. “Can I give you some advice, Abby?”
Abby smiled again, and nodded. “Of course, Mrs. Gatewood. You know your advice is always welcomed.”
Sweet Abby, she smiled warmly. “Never take anyone you meet for granted. Never dismiss them or ignore them, but pay attention. Because you never know if they are just passing through your life for a moment, or if they’ll play some crucial part in it. God puts people in our path for a reason. And it can be years before you understand why.”
Abby thanked her graciously for her words of wisdom and then got up and left. Of course, she was no different than the rest of them. She thought Olivia was crazy. They all did. And maybe she was. But the day she walked out of that shop, it never occurred to her to ask that girl her name. It didn’t seem possible that the same man who loved Olivia and made her his wife, would love a woman so seemingly insignificant as the young woman Olivia paid her money to. Or that he would cling so desperately to her, until the very day he—died?
Heavy tears suddenly flooded her eyes. Olivia raised her thin hand to her mouth and gasped, softly. She looked at the clock again. Four twenty. He wasn’t coming home. Not tonight. Not ever.
A Day in the Life
Rich and powerful men had enemies. Jordan Gatewood had more than his share, but he’d mastered the art of keeping those enemies closer than he kept his friends. Now, it seemed, he had some unknown foe sending cryptic text messages to his private number.
Your story is getting dusty
Your lies are getting rusty
The message would’ve been nothing more than a silly rhyme to anyone else. But Jordan knew better than to dismiss it so easily. It was a threat, a warning, and a man in his position didn’t get to and stay where he was by ignoring threats.
Whoever it was that sent it and the others before obviously believed that they had something on him, and decided to play games with what they thought they knew. But anybody who knew Jordan, who really knew him, knew better than to fuck with him.
He’d come downstairs from his bedroom to his home office first thing on a Sunday morning before breakfast–to make a phone call.
“It’s me. They sent another one.”
Frank Mitchell worked for Jordan and was one of the top IT techs at the company. Jordan trusted his discretion.
“Can you meet me at the office?”
“I can meet you there around four.”
“Four’s fine.” Jordan hung up.
He’d asked Frank to try and track the messages to the source.
“Normally, all I’d have to do is to track the messages signal to the nearest tower to pinpoint the location of where it was sent,” Frank explained.
“But this isn’t normal?”
“It’s like the signal’s being bounced from tower to tower. Almost as if each word of the text is being transmitted simultaneously from different locations from different phones.”
“That’s impossible,” Jordan said.
“You would think.”
Eventually, Jordan changed his private number, but somehow, whoever was sending these messages managed to get that number as well and picked up where they left off, which led him to the only conclusion that made any sense. Someone he knew was sending him this crap.
* * *
Marriage was a necessary evil for a man like Jordan. He’d taken over running Gatewood Industries, in name only, after his father died. Jordan was barely out of college where he’d majored in football and girls. The Board of Directors saw him as more of a nuisance than head of his father’s corporation, and they treated him accordingly. Back then, the only thing he was good for was his signature. Other people, more experienced than he was, more knowledgeable, and certainly better groomed for managing a multimillion-dollar corporation, made all the business decisions on his behalf. He made the mistake once of complaining to his mother about it, and she had retreated into her home and become little more than a hermit after the trial.
“It’s your father’s business, Jordan,” she explained to him. “Of course he’d want you to run it, but you know as well as I do, that he’d want you to prove that you could. Julian would never hand over something that important to someone he didn’t think was qualified.”
“How can I prove that I’m qualified if they won’t let me?”
She stared blankly at him. “Since when does anyone have to let a Gatewood do anything? Julian didn’t let anyone tell him he couldn’t become one of Texas’s wealthiest black men? You don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t be who your father meant for you to be.” He bullied his way to their respect. It had taken years, but now the executive leadership didn’t even wipe their asses without his approval.
Marrying Claire five years ago was a business move, one he’d held off making for as long as he could, and one he went into kicking and screaming. With the words “I do,” Jordan was transformed from wealthy playboy to r
esponsible corporate CEO. Stock prices rose at the announcement of his engagement, a phenomenon he found laughable.
“Fashion week in New York is next month. We should go.”
Claire was the ideal trophy wife, beautiful, classy, and completely void of substance. Conversations with her were like talking to cardboard, so most of the time she talked, and he didn’t bother hiding the fact that he wasn’t listening. She looked delicious on his arm, spent money like water, and gave a mind-blowing blow job. What more could a man ask for?
“I know you don’t like New York, but—”
“I’ll have to check my schedule, Claire,” Jordan said, turning the pages of his newspaper before she could finish asking her question.
“I haven’t even told you what week it is, Jordan,” she said, notably offended.
It wasn’t New York that he didn’t dig. It was being in New York with Claire during fashion week that didn’t sound all that appealing.
“More coffee, Mr. Gatewood?” the housekeeper asked, hovering around him with a fresh pot.
“Thank you, Louise.” He held up his cup and never bothered to look up from his newspaper.
“Is it my imagination,” Claire asked, getting up from her chair and slowly, seductively walking toward him, “or is my husband more interested in the sports page than his wife?”
One long, caramel-colored leg draped across his lap, and Claire made herself comfortable on his crotch, at the breakfast table. Amber, exotic eyes, a golden mane of hair parted on one side and cascading in rivers down her shoulders, a delectable and appealing tongue moistened her lips—another man would’ve cum already.
Claire put her hands on the back of his neck, and pulled his face to hers, and slipped her velvet tongue into his mouth. Jordan let her, waiting to feel—something. Before the two of them were married, men were lined up in droves vying for Claire’s attention. She was the prize at the carnival and when it was all said and done, he was the winner. It didn’t take long for him to reach the conclusion that playing the game had meant more to him than winning.
