Color of Deception

by Khara Campbell

  Color of Love

  Khara Campbell

  Chapter 1

  The knocking on the door interrupted Pete from his Sunday morning routine of coffee, sports news on TV and reading The Washington Post. He sucked his teeth in frustration and stood up effortlessly, which was great for his forty-eight-year-old body, which he refused to put any extra effort in keeping in shape. He stood tall at six feet.

  Pete walked over to the front door, already knowing who was behind it before he opened it. He cussed under his breath. Part of him really wanted to ignore the knocking on the door and pretend like he wasn’t home. But he was sure if he didn’t answer now, she would be back later, no doubt. He unlocked and slowly opened the door, not even trying to mask the look of irritation on his face.

  “Good morning Uncle Pete, I came to see if you would like to go to church with me today,” Rachel said, beaming. Her bright smile and flowing golden-blonde hair almost overshadowed the early morning sun shining down on the front porch.

  “I don’t know why you insist on coming here every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening pestering me about some damn church,” Pete howled. “You know good and goddamn well that I’m not going. Yes I said goddamn, is that blasphemy like you call it? Well I don’t care!” Pete turned and walked away from the door and left Rachel standing on the porch.

  Rachel walked in the house and closed the door behind her, she wasn’t the least bit fazed by her Uncle’s abrasive attitude. She’d been coming to visit him faithfully every week for almost a year since her Aunt Moriah was killed in a car accident. She felt it was now her responsibility to check up on him, but more importantly to continue praying for him because when his wife died he had turned into a completely different person.

  “What the hell! When did my neighborhood get filled up with all these niggers!?” Pete yelled when he looked out the bay window and noticed a young Black couple walking their dog.

  “Uncle Pete! How dare you? That is offensive, rude and not Christ-like.”

  “Well, I’m offensive, rude and not Christ-like, so I can say whatever the hell I want,” Pete defended. “I’ve been living here for ten years and never have I seen so many black people. Did they all win the lotto or get rich picking cotton?” Pete mocked, he took a seat back on the couch.

  “How dare you talk like that? Aunt Moriah is probably rolling around in her grave.” Rachel took a seat in the armchair across from her uncle.

  “Well she wouldn’t be there if a nigger hadn’t crashed into her car,” Pete snapped.

  “That was an accident. The driver of the other vehicle had a heart attack behind the wheel. You shouldn’t be blaming anyone for what happened. Two lives were lost that day,” Rachel reasoned. “And calling black people the N word is not right. You need to pray and ask God to heal your heart. You shouldn’t lash out because of Aunt Moriah’s death like that. And you can’t blame every black person for what happened.”

  Pete took a sip of his coffee and ignored everything Rachel just said. All he knew was a black man was driving the car that crashed into his wife, whether he had a heart attack or not, he still caused the death of the love of his life. That bastard was drunk; I still don’t believe he had a heart attack! Now he was left with no wife, no kids and only a pestering niece that insisted on bothering him every freaking week about going to her damn church. He considered going to church with her; maybe that would get her off his back.

  “I can do and say whatever the hell I want! This is my house!” He spat.

  “I bet you wouldn’t say the N word in public because you know it’s wrong. So you shouldn’t say it in private either!”

  Pete sucked his teeth loudly. Out of respect for his niece and the kind heart of his beloved dead wife, he held back saying a few cuss words to Rachel. Rachel’s father was his dearly departed wife Moriah’s brother and as much as it pained him to have to deal with Rachel pestering him to go to church every week, he was happy to have Moriah’s family around, it helped him deal with some of the pain of losing his wife so soon and so unfairly. If the driver of that car hadn’t died in the accident he probably would’ve killed the man himself for killing his wife.

  Pete would never forget the phone call he received telling him about the accident. Moriah had left their office at Minute Print, the small printing company they operated together to make a deposit at the bank that evening. She was on her way back to the office when the accident happened. The driver that had the heart attack, or drunk driver, veered into her lane hitting her head on. She died instantly. Pete’s whole world turned gray that day. He wanted to die with his wife. Then his anger shifted to every black man that reminded him of the man that hit his wife’s car. Then he just began to despise the sight of any black person that would remind him of the black man that took his wife’s life. Even Pete was surprised at how quickly his anger for the black race grew, but he then began to not care because the fact still remained that his love, his queen, his life, the woman he wanted to have children with, the woman he wanted to grow old with was gone and she was never coming back.

  “Rachel – why do you insist on bothering me every Sunday? Get the hint, I am not interested in going to church.” Pete took another sip of his coffee and went back to reading his newspaper.

  “Uncle Pete, you know Aunt Moriah loved going to church, she sang in the choir. I’m sure she doesn’t want you not to go anymore.”

  “Moriah’s not here, Rachel. And every day I am painfully reminded of that, especially when I look out my own window and see all those black people taking over my neighborhood. You ever thought that maybe I don’t like to go to church anymore is because it reminds me too much of her? When the choir goes up to sing, I still try to find her in the group, but then I remember, yet again, that she’s gone.” Pete pushed down the emotion to cry with the memory of his wife. It was a couple weeks shy of a year since her death, but to Pete, sometimes it still felt like it just happened yesterday.

  “I’m sorry, I never thought about it like that.” Rachel was sincere. “Well, will you at least be coming over for dinner later?”

  Pete wanted to say no right away, but figured it would be good for him to get a home cooked meal. “What time is it?”

  “Four.”

  “Alright, I will come over for dinner,” he conceded.

  Rachel got up and gave her uncle a quick hug. “Thanks! And don’t be late. I’ll see you later.” She turned and walked toward the door.

  “I said I’ll be there all right – I’ll be there on time,” Pete answered, relieved that she was leaving.

  “Okay!”

  Chapter 2

  Pete sat in the back office looking over the accounting files in QuickBooks. That used to be his deceased wife Moriah's job. He knew he would have to get a bookkeeper soon because he was doing a terrible job of making sure the books were in order. But after his wife's death a year ago he still wasn't ready to relinquish the position to someone else. It was sacred in his mind. His accountant would have a cow come tax season trying to figure everything out. As far as Pete was concerned it was organized chaos. As long as he knew how much money was coming in and going out he was content.

  "Mr. Holmes," Carlisha said after knocking on the opened office door. "I need your assistance with the POS system. Everything was working then it just froze up, now we’re not able to get online."

  Pete looked away from the computer up at Carlisha's dark mocha face. He had to admit she was a beautiful young lady. But he still hated the skin she was in. Even with his current distaste for black people he couldn't fire them all off his staff. He could be sued for discrimination if he got rid of all five of them leaving the other seven white employees. Plus they were all excellent employees, because he sure tried
to come up with an excuse to fire all of them the moment the dark root of hate overtook his heart. He and his late wife Moriah prided themselves on having great incentives for their workers, it kept them loyal. Carlisha was twenty- three and she just recently switched from full-time hours to part-time while she went to college to get her Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing. Moriah hired Carlisha right on the spot when she walked into their establishment three years ago looking for a job. Moriah even convinced Pete to assist Carlisha with a down payment for an apartment. She had just rode into town from Florida all by herself wanting to ‘start anew’ as she told Moriah. Carlisha had been in the foster care system since she was five years old when both her parents were brutally murdered during a home invasion. Moriah had sympathy for her and wanted to assist her in any way possible. Carlisha had been working at Minute Print ever since.

  "Alright. I will see if we've lost internet connection." Pete got up away from his desk and walked over to check the Internet modem in a corner in his office. Carlisha watched as he did. Pete noticed that the Internet light was not on. "Damnit! Did I forget to pay the bill again?" He scolded himself under his breath. I need to do a better job with keeping up with these bills.

  "Is it working?" Carlisha asked, but she already knew the answer, he forgot to pay the bill – again.

  Since Mrs. Holmes death she had noticed a huge change in him. Besides forgetting to pay the bills for the business on time, she also noticed that he was very withdrawn from her. He didn’t speak to her directly anymore, only if, like now, she initiated it. It seemed as if it pained him to deal with her if it wasn’t directly related to the business. Quite frankly, the other black employees noticed that Mr. Holmes was not interacting with them anymore either. But Carlisha chucked it up to him still grieving over his wife. Mrs. Holmes was God sent in Carlisha’s opinion. She helped saved her life. When she got on the bus from Florida heading up north, she really didn’t know where she would end up. She had spent the greater part of her life in the Florida Foster Care system. So basically nowhere was her home. She had no family that she knew of. No family member ever claimed her and no stranger wanted to make her part of their family – other than Mrs. Holmes. Moriah rescued Carlisha right away when she walked into their establishment begging for a job. Carlisha had been thankful to the Holmes ever since.

  Carlisha was devastated when she received the news that Mrs. Holmes was killed in a car accident. She was the closet to a mother Carlisha ever had since her parents’ were killed. And it seemed she lost her dad that day too since now Mr. Holmes was so distant.

  “Yes, it’s out. Give me a few minutes to call to get it back on.” Pete returned to sit at his desk to look up the number for the internet company. He was irritated with himself and the fact that he looked like an idiot in front of a black person, even though he once considered Carlisha a daughter since his late wife immediately took a liking to her and insisted on being in the young woman’s life. Now all he saw in Carlisha was another black face which reminded him of the black man that killed his wife.

  “Alright Mr. Holmes.” Carlisha walked away.

  **KC**

  “He’s working on it,” Carlisha said to James when she returned to the front of the store.

  “That’s cool. The guy had cash to pay the deposit for his brochure instead of using his credit card,” James replied, sitting behind a computer at the front counter.

  “I hope he gets the internet up before someone else comes in with credit card payment.” Carlisha took a seat next to him by the second computer station.

  “Yeah, plus I can’t get on the server to pull up saved jobs.” James turned and looked at Carlisha; his green eyes were directly on her now. “He forgot to pay the bill again, didn’t he?”

  “Yup, he’s calling now to pay over the phone.”

  “I’ve got a backlog of orders as it is,” James said, shaking his head.

  “Hopefully it’s back on in less than an hour.”

  “I’m going in the back to see if I can help in printing and production, they don’t need the internet to work. I’ll tell the graphic department on my way back there.” James got up and headed towards the back leaving Carlisha up front in the retail division by herself.

  Carlisha decided to work on new flyer and business card jobs which didn’t require opening up existing jobs on the server. Because she didn’t have much graphic design experience she was allowed to work on simple jobs as well as being the front of house point of contact.

  As she was working, she suddenly had a bad taste in her mouth followed by the urge to spit. She quickly pulled out a balled up paper towel she kept in her pants pocket and spat in it. She was six months pregnant but had been keeping it a secret since she found out. Because of her thin body frame and with the help of bulky clothing she was able to hide it well. She didn’t have any particular reason for keeping it a secret, only the fact that she really didn’t have anyone special to share the news with. Her boyfriend dumped her right after she told him she was pregnant. He said he had too many children, three to be exact, and didn’t want to add another. Carlisha couldn’t believe he would say something like that and just deny their child before it was even born. But she refused to chase after him as well. It was his loss as far as she was concerned. With Mrs. Holmes gone and Mr. Holmes showing no interest she just didn’t feel the need to reveal her pregnancy. Plus, being in the foster care system for most of her life she’d learned to just keep things to herself.

  She quickly balled up the paper towel with her spit and threw it in the waste basket under the counter where she sat. She hated that she kept getting the urge to spit, but swallowing it would only have made her want to throw up, which she had done before. Her doctor said it may not subside until she gave birth, which literally left a bad taste in Carlisha’s mouth.

  “The internet will be up in less than thirty minutes,” Pete announced after he walked out front in the retail department.

  Carlisha quickly adjusted her black blouse to continue to camouflage her pregnancy. “Okay thanks!” She opened up a computer program and started working.

  Pete walked away, relieved to go back to the sanctuary of his office away from the employees, and he hoped to try and get a better handle on the QuickBooks.

  Chapter 3

  Carlisha sat alone behind the front counter; she was busy inputting customer orders to send to the graphic design department. She was also trying to keep herself busy and distract her mind from getting too emotional. The store door chimed indicating someone had just entered. Carlisha rolled her chair away from the computer so she could see who just walked in.

  “Good afternoon, how can I assist you today?” Carlisha greeted cheerfully.

  An older black woman walked toward the counter carrying a huge arrangement of flowers, Carlisha guessed she was maybe in her sixties. “Yes, I would like to see Mr. Holmes. This is his business, right?” The woman asked, resting the beautiful arrangement of summer flowers on the counter.

  “Yes it is. Umm, let me see if he’s available.” Carlisha was very curious as to why the woman wanted to see Pete, and she was even more curious about the flowers. “Can I tell him your name?”

  “Of course, I’m Mrs. Bevins.”

  “Okay. Please excuse me while I call him.” The name sounded familiar to Carlisha, but not enough to bring up any connections at that moment. She picked up the phone near the computer she was working on and called Pete’s office. “Hi Mr. Holmes, Mrs. Bevins is here to see you,” Carlisha said after Pete answered his line.

  “Mrs. Bevins!” The recognition of the name was immediate to Pete. His nostrils started flaring with anger. What the HELL does she want with me? How dare she step foot in my business! “I’m not available!” Pete snapped. He ran his free hand through his mostly dark with just a hint of gray, straight hair. “Never mind, I’ll be out in a minute.” Pete slammed down the phone. He didn’t care if it banged loudly in Carlisha’s ear. He was curious as to why Mrs. Bevins felt the need
to come and see him. He looked back at his computer screen which had an image of his late wife on it. Today was the one year anniversary of her death. No one in the office seemed to have remembered, or they felt it best not to mention it to him – not that he gave them the opportunity to speak to him casually beyond business anymore. He was grateful no one mentioned it though; he’d been holed up in his office staring at her picture and obsessively re-reading her obituary all day.

  “What is it that you want?” Pete demanded from Mrs. Bevins after he walked out front into retail.

  Carlisha was a bit shocked at his tone to the business guest, but she wasn’t too surprised considering just moments ago he slammed the phone in her ear. She knew today was the one year anniversary of Mrs. Holmes death and figured his poor mood was because of it. She wanted to say something to him earlier, but thought it was best she didn’t, now she knew that she’d made the right decision.

  Mrs. Bevins wasn’t as shocked as Carlisha was at Pete’s reaction to her presence, she had her own reservations about coming, but she felt it was best, regardless.

  Pete stood at a distance waiting for Mrs. Bevin’s response. He was thankful there weren’t any customers in the establishment at that moment; he would’ve hated to scare them off. He did still have a business to run.

  “Mr. Holmes I know you are still grieving your wife’s death, I am too, as well as the death of my husband. I just wanted you to know that I am still extremely sorry for your loss. I brought you some flowers; I thought they would be nice to place at your wife’s gravesite on my behalf,” Mrs. Bevins said, standing her ground.

  “You think some damn flowers are going to make me feel any better about losing my wife?” Pete questioned angrily. He didn’t care that Mrs. Bevins was his senior or that she was a woman. All he saw was her black face. He could care less that she was grieving too, that today was also the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death. If your idiot of a husband hadn’t had a heart attack or wasn’t drinking then we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.