Envy

by Victoria Christopher Murray

  I glanced at the jeans she wore along with the navy blazer she’d borrowed from me. She looked cute, chic, but we were going to have to get her away from just jeans.

  Inside the elevator, Keisha watched the floor panel as we ascended and then when we stepped off, I felt her excitement.

  “Wow,” she said again when we stood in front of the glass doors of my office. “Your name is on the door.”

  I laughed. “Well, Regan and I can do that since we own the business.” When I pushed the door open, I stepped aside so Keisha could enter first. And then, like on Saturday night when I gave Keisha a tour of my home, I saw my office through her eyes.

  “Good morning.” Pamela jumped from her desk and came around to greet us.

  I’d called my assistant last night and filled her in on the details of Keisha. Before I could make the introduction, my assistant (who could have been a perpetual high school cheerleader by her looks and demeanor) greeted Keisha with glee and a hug.

  “I’m Pamela, and it’s so nice to meet you.”

  When Pamela released her from the embrace, Keisha said, “Yeah.”

  “Mattie isn’t here yet,” I told Keisha as I led her into my office. “She works for Regan, so you two will be working closely together, too.”

  I pushed open my office door and paused as I always did before I stepped inside.

  Keisha followed me. “Is that the real Hollywood sign?”

  I laughed. “Yeah. We’ll figure out a time to take you up there.”

  Her eyes were as wide as her grin when she turned from the window, and now her gaze digested my office. “This is different from your house. There’s a lot of color here.”

  “That’s true. Mauricio and I love neutrals—we love that Zen feeling at home. But here, I wanted my office to be bold with color.”

  “Every color,” she said, taking in the wall that had been painted green, then my oversize red cube desk and the yellow chairs in front of it. “It’s really . . . kinda funky.”

  That word made me laugh. “Well, let’s get you settled.” Stepping back out into the reception area, I paused as Mattie came in. “Oh, Keisha, this is Regan’s assistant.”

  Like Pamela, Mattie hugged Keisha and then I led her through the rest of the office, introducing her to our two PR associates and showing her the conference room, before I knocked on Regan’s door.

  “Come in,” she said, then held up her hand letting me know that she was finishing a call. “Okay, Thursday is good. I just have to check with Gabrielle and I’ll have Pamela or Mattie call you back.” She paused. “Now, Justus . . .”

  As soon as she said his name, Keisha gasped.

  “Be on time,” Regan continued. “We have to get you prepped for The View.” She hung up, then looked up. And her smile was as fake as those Persian rugs sold on every corner on La Brea Avenue.

  “You were talking to Justus?” Keisha sounded as if she were almost hyperventilating.

  “Uh . . . yeah.” Regan’s tone was far from warm. “He’s one of our clients.” Regan turned to me. “So you’re giving her a tour?”

  I nodded before I added, “A tour and a job.” And then, because of the way Regan’s stare turned to a glare, I turned around and rushed Keisha out of there. Because I didn’t want to hear the words that came along with that expression. At least I didn’t want to hear them in front of Keisha, and the challenge with my friend was that she had no filter.

  “So,” I began once we stepped from Regan’s office, “that’s it. That’s everyone and everything.”

  “Wow. I thought you’d have more people working here.”

  Inside my office, she sat down as I rounded my desk. “Well, we all work hard, and it is going to be a relief having you here with us.” Placing my arms on my desk, I leaned forward. “I’m so happy about this, Keisha. I hope you are, too.”

  She nodded, and I was just glad she didn’t shrug.

  “All right.” I reached for the phone. “I’m going to have you work with Pamela first.” I buzzed Pamela’s desk, asked her to join us, and once she got settled next to Keisha, I said, “This is an exciting time; we’re growing some more. So, Pamela, if for the next week, Keisha can shadow you, that will be great. A week with you, and she’ll know everything.”

  “Okay,” Pamela said.

  Keisha shrugged, but at least she was grinning.

  “And then,” I said to Pamela, “Regan and I will talk to you about what you’ll be doing next.”

  “That’s great,” Pamela said. “Whatever, you know that I’m in. I love working here.”

  “What a coincidence. ’Cause we love having you work here.”

  “Okay, well, the first thing you and I have to do”—Pamela turned to Keisha—“is get ready for Justus coming in this week. We’re prepping him for media and whenever he comes into the office, it’s a big deal.”

  I said, “I think Regan already set it up for Thursday.”

  “Welp.” Pamela jumped out of her seat. “Let’s get started.”

  “I’m ready,” Keisha said, and I gave her a thumbs-up as she popped up and followed Pamela.

  Pamela closed the door, leaving me alone the way she did every morning. I swiveled my chair and faced the view. And gave thanks to God for all of His blessings—which included Keisha.

  I liked to do this bit of meditation for about ten minutes before I dived into my day. It was a part of my routine that everyone knew about and everyone respected. No one came to my door until I opened it.

  Which was why I was a bit startled when after just about a minute, there was a quick knock and then Regan barged into my space.

  “Excuse you,” I said.

  She closed the door behind her, stood over my desk, and folded her arms like she was about to give me a serious scolding. “Do you want to explain this job that you gave to Keisha without talking to me?” Her head moved in all kinds of ways with her words.

  “This is about my dad. He really wants her to stay in Los Angeles.”

  “Get to the part where she’s now working here.”

  “That is the part. If she’s going to stay in Los Angeles, she needs a job. So why wouldn’t I hire her?”

  “Because hiring is permanent.”

  “Well, we’re hoping that she’ll stay in LA permanently.” My eyes widened a bit when Regan growled and I further explained, “It’s perfect timing. You and I just talked about making Pamela an associate.”

  She held up her hand. “You know I don’t have a problem with promoting Pamela. This isn’t about her.”

  “Well, when we promote her, I’m going to need an assistant. I was going to have to hire someone, so why not Keisha?”

  Regan blew out a long breath, then sat down. “Gabby, I think you and your dad are moving too quickly.”

  Now I was the one who growled. “If this is about the test, we’ll have the results tomorrow.”

  She shook her head and leaned forward as if she needed to get into my face to deliver her message. “This is about more than those test results. I don’t trust Keisha.”

  “Why? What happened with the two of you down there in White Haven?”

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk since you stomped out of your dad’s house.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “But the thing is, Keisha’s shady.” Regan held up her hand and began counting off her fingers. “First of all, she knew your name.”

  “Really? You’re going back to that?”

  “She lied about where she lived.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. She could have been staying with someone and said that’s where she was living.”

  “And I caught her talking to this guy in Walmart . . .”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, that’s shady for real, ’cause you know, those Walmart customers . . .”

  “He wasn’t a customer; he worked there,” she said, my sarcasm doing nothing to abate her anger. “They were in a heated discussion when I walked up, and then she lied abo
ut knowing him.”

  I sat back and waited for more. When she said nothing else, I said, “So these are the reasons why you don’t trust her? This is your evidence?”

  “You want proof?” She paused. “Well, this is it—I have the gift of discernment, and I know when something’s not right.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that. But all of your doubts will go away tomorrow.”

  “What I’m talking about, Gabrielle, has nothing to do with DNA.” She shook her head as she pushed herself up. “This has nothing to do with her father. She wasn’t raised by the same people who raised you. She’s different, and you need to be careful.”

  Regan stomped toward the door, but before she opened it, she looked over her shoulder. “Don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

  And then she sailed out of the office as if she had just rested her case.

  22

  Keisha

  I’d only been in Los Angeles for five days, but in many ways I felt like I’d been here forever. Already this felt like my life—the house and now the business. It was just my second day in the office and I was learning so much. Gabrielle was right: I’d be able to begin working by her side in just a week.

  I imagined the clients I’d be talking to. She probably wouldn’t start me off with Justus, but my plan was to make myself so valuable that quickly, she’d put me in charge of the important clients. Maybe one day, she’d even decide that she didn’t need Regan. That would be the day to sing Hallelujah! Because it wasn’t getting any better with Gabrielle’s best-witch, my new name for her best friend.

  As I sat next to Pamela in Gabrielle’s office, Pamela pulled out her tablet. “Okay, let’s go over your schedule,” she said to Gabrielle. Then to me, she added, “This is probably the most important thing for Gabrielle because she doesn’t keep track of anything.”

  “Hey, I can hear you,” Gabrielle said, and we all laughed.

  “Seriously, Pamela is right,” Gabrielle told me. “She is my brain when it comes to where I’m supposed to be.”

  As Pamela reviewed Gabrielle’s schedule for the next two days, I couldn’t wait for the day when Pamela would be doing the same with me. I wanted her to be in charge of all of my appointments. And then I wondered, where would my office be? It didn’t look like they had any extra space, and I couldn’t imagine them wanting to move away from this one. There had to be a way to make more space, I figured.

  “Keisha is going to need one.”

  I blinked. Damn, my mind had wandered so much I didn’t know what Pamela was talking about.

  Gabrielle said, “Yes, definitely, I agree. You have to have a tablet.”

  I breathed. “Yeah, since everything is done digitally.”

  She nodded. “We may have to get you a new phone, too, because we sync everything.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Whatever you need I’m willing to do.”

  “Okay,” Pamela began, “so do you want to have a full lunch spread for tomorrow, or just light sandwiches?”

  “Who’s coming in with Justus?” Gabrielle asked.

  “I don’t know; I sent him an email, but I can call him.” She tapped something on her tablet.

  “Do that,” Gabrielle said. “Find out and then we’ll make a decision. I want to do that before noon.”

  My legs started to tremble. Pamela was going to call Justus while I was sitting right there? Oh my God! What if she let me talk to him? She had to let me; this would be my first opportunity to prove what I could do.

  “Excuse me.”

  The tap on Gabrielle’s open door and that voice made me push thoughts of Justus aside and turn the same way Pamela and Gabrielle did.

  A black man in a brown UPS uniform stepped inside. “There was no one out there”—he held up a manila envelope—“to sign for this delivery.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Gabrielle jumped from her chair so fast it almost fell back. “I’ll sign.”

  He handed her the envelope, and after she looked at the front of it, she took a deep breath. She signed the tablet, handed it back to the UPS guy, and thanked him.

  The way she looked at me made my heart thump. And then when she said to Pamela, “Would you mind leaving me and Keisha alone for a moment?” I knew what she held in her hand.

  Pamela nodded without asking any questions, but when she closed the door behind her, I had one for Gabrielle.

  “Is that it?”

  It was like she was moving in slow motion when she sat down and nodded. She stared at the envelope, and I stared at her.

  Until I said, “Are you going to open it?”

  She looked up. “Do you want to?”

  I shook my head right away.

  Gabrielle said, “These results are addressed to you, so you can open it.”

  “No, you do it.”

  Then Gabrielle waved her hand in the air. “I don’t know why we’re being dramatic about this; we know what this is going to say.” She ripped open the envelope, and I felt like I was sitting in the living room of Mrs. Johnson’s shack watching Maury.

  Gabrielle yanked the paper out, glanced at it for just a second, and her smile told the whole story. While she was looking down, she was smiling; when she glanced up, she was beaming. “You are my sister.”

  Even though I knew it all along, even though Gabrielle and Elijah kept telling me that they knew it, too, with all the drama that had been happening between Regan and her stank attitude toward me, and even Mauricio’s suspicions, I didn’t know if one of them would try to change the results like what happened on TV sometimes.

  Gabrielle said again, “You are my sister,” and tears were in her eyes. She rose from her seat, but I stayed still. She had to take my hand and lift me up in order for me to move. She hugged me, and this time, I hugged her, too, for real. She stepped back for a moment and said again, “You are my sister.”

  “Yeah.”

  That made her crack up. Like really laugh out loud. It was because she sounded so silly that I laughed, too.

  “We have to celebrate,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “And the best way to celebrate?” She wasn’t really asking me a question, so I didn’t say anything. She said, “Shopping. We have to go shopping. Oh my God.” She finally let me go and went back around to her side of the desk. “Now that we know you’ll be staying here . . .”

  She paused and I hesitated for only a moment before I nodded.

  “Good,” she continued. “You look great, but I want to take you shopping.”

  “Okay.”

  “If we can, we’ll do that tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  There was another light knock on the door and Regan peeked inside. “Sounds like there’s a party in here.”

  I snatched the letter from Gabrielle’s desk and shoved it into her face. It wasn’t the most subtle thing I’d ever done, but I couldn’t wait for Regan to see.

  I watched her eyes move as she read the words.

  “Well,” Regan said.

  “Well,” I mimicked her and folded my arms.

  Gabrielle moved in between us as if she thought our next move might be one of us throwing an uppercut.

  “Keisha”—Gabrielle turned to me—“why don’t you call Daddy?” She nodded as if she wanted me to know she wasn’t making a suggestion.

  “Yeah,” I said. I held out my hand toward Regan, and when she handed me the letter, I did everything I could not to snatch it from her. I would have done that if Gabrielle hadn’t been standing right there.

  Turning back to Gabrielle, I said, “Okay, I’ll call . . .” I paused. “I’ll call . . . Elijah.” Gabrielle felt like my family, but Elijah . . . not yet. Even though I’d searched for him all this time, I wasn’t feeling it.

  Looking at Regan one more time, I stepped out of the office, then told Pamela that I was going downstairs for a minute.

  On the way down in the elevator, I read the paper. It was weird; I expected the page to be filled with words�
�something that just said: Elijah Wilson, you are the father!

  But instead, the paper was loaded with dozens of numbers that I didn’t understand. There was something that was the combined paternity index, but then there was the number that I did understand: probability of paternity—99.9998 percent.

  Wow! We couldn’t get any more sure than that. By the time I walked out of the building, I was imagining what this 99.9998 percent meant—I was going to have this life for sure. I was going to have everything that Gabrielle had, all because she and Elijah were related to me.

  When I stepped outside, I wondered if this was the best place to make the call. The streets here were so noisy between the cars and the buses, the horns and the brakes. Still, I leaned against one of the columns in front of the building, pressed the number, and wasn’t surprised when he answered right away.

  “Yo, what’s up? Why don’t you answer my calls no more? You too good for me now that you’re in California?”

  Three seconds and I was already sorry that I’d called Buck first. I mean, I really did care for Buck because of all that he’d done for me, but . . . “Are you going to let me say anything or are you gonna keep asking questions?”

  “Yo, talk to me.”

  “It’s just that you always call when I’m around them.”

  “Them who?”

  “Gabrielle and Elijah, who do you think? But I snuck out to call you ’cause I got some news.” I filled him in on what had been going on since I’d last spoken to him on Saturday, particularly the DNA results.

  “Yo, congratulations, boo. You’re in the money now for real. When can you send some cash my way?”

  I couldn’t be mad at Buck ’cause that had been the plan all along. But now that Gabrielle was bringing me into her company, Buck and I didn’t have to go this route. In a couple of months, he could move out here, we could get our own place, and by Christmas, we’d be living large with all the money I’d be making working alongside Gabrielle. I could probably even hire Buck by then, too.