by Nikki Turner
“That is so messed up,” Simone sympathized with her sister feeling incredibly hopeless about the whole thing.
“They were damn lucky I didn’t cap one of ’em. The only reason was because I knew even though Spoe had stopped talking to them, he still loved his family. He would have wanted to know they weren’t left out there with nothing.”
“But what about you? Why didn’t he make sure that you were taken care of? That just so fucked up.”
“Look, he had my back the same way that your dad had yours. Shit don’t always work out the way it’s planned. I know Spoe had my mother fuckin back!” Bunny lashed out at Simone for insinuating that he didn’t. Her anger, frustration and fear were threatening to overflow onto the next person to get out of pocket even if it was her favorite sister.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I know how much he loved you.” Simone offered backing off. She hadn’t meant it the way her sister had taken it. This entire thing was really traumatic and she was worried about her sister. As the oldest Banks sister, Simone thought it was her job to help her siblings out of their messes, but this one was way above her head. The fact that she couldn’t help her sister in her time of need pained her.
“Yes, he did love me,” Bunny said her voice sounding fragile and strong at the same time. Unlike Simone’s father who had died of cancer, Spoe had been killed. He had been taken from her and if it was the last thing she did, Ghostman would pay.
“We have to figure something out.”
“No, this isn’t on you. It’s my problem. I just needed to vent Simone.” Bunny had always prided herself on being able to handle her issues alone, but loosing Spoe was too much for her to keep to herself.
“We’re sisters so your problem is my problem. You weren’t there when Me-Ma spoke to the entire church, but this is exactly what she meant when she got up on that pulpit and preached. It was about the gift of family and how we don’t get to just leave each other flailing in the wind when they have a problem. We have to stick together and not just when good stuff is happening,” Simone reached over and hugged her sister.
“What about the cars?” Simone shouted excited to have figured out her sister’s problem.
“The cars are leased so I gave his over to his mother ’cause what good is it going to do me since I can’t sell it?”
“What about your stuff? All those expensive bags and clothes?”
“I went into one of those expensive-ass resale stores but since I didn’t have the receipts for none of it the woman didn’t want to fuck with me. Everything was paid in cash so they couldn’t look it up with my card and I never saved the receipts. So there was nothing she could do. I’m fucked. And the consignment shop, basically after its sold and they take their cut, it would be like I was selling my stuff for crackhead prices.” Bunny shoved her plate of food across the table. There was no way she could have an appetite anymore.
“It’s not like I can go to the bank and get a loan. They want collateral and since they don’t mean last seasons Chloé bag or Chanel shoes the only other thing I can put up is my ass.” The two of them shared a look ’cause they were thinking the same thing. “You think if you had a fake ass you could take it to the bank and use it as collateral?” Well, that was enough to make them smile.
Lucky for the Banks sisters God spared no expense when it came to making sure they were fine, they all had booty’s that men salivated at even fully clothed.
“That would be classic.” The sisters finally laughed to keep from crying and high fived each other they were clowning so hard.
“Sisi, you work at that bank. You wanna slide your little sister about one hundred grand? You know to save my life?” Bunny actually started laughing, which proved contagious because before long both sisters were in hysterics.
“Hell yeah, you and everybody else. Just come to my register and I will personally hand you the money. You need cash to buy a new pair of Louie’s for a party? Well here is three thousand because you’re going to need a new bag to go with it too.” Simone mimed handing over the money.
“Well, I really need money to get my nails done . . . in Paris,” Bunny spurted out barely able to form the words, but Simone played her part to the hilt sounding like the straight laced bank employee.
“Paris, France or Paris, Texas because whatever you need I got your money right here.” She laughed before continuing, “The way that damn manager treated me today I should just give you all the money. I told you how he acted toward me when I went today, right?” Bunny nodded.
“Bwwaaaa!” Simone broke out into gleeful laughter. “Could you imagine his face?”
“I would give anything to see that!” Simone said, her face growing serious. Bunny noticed Simone’s expression change and their eyes met. The two of them grew silent, their thoughts traveling from one to the other.
“Then why don’t we just do it?” Bunny spoke first and instead of arguing or disagreeing Simone broke into a smile.
“And I know exactly how it would go down.” Simone said smirking.
“Why not right? Let’s fucking go in there and get that money.” Bunny raised her hand to high five her sister who just sat there staring at her.
“I was kidding. You do know that don’t you?”
“Well, I’m not. This is the perfect solution,” Bunny argued sounding really adamant. Simone gave her a look to let her know that she thought this was crazy, but she knew her sister and once Bunny made up her mind it may as well have been set in stone.
“You’re crazy if you think you can pull this off? Forget it.” The doorbell ringing stopped her from telling her sister in detail how insane she thought her idea actually was. What did she think she could do, burst in and rob the bank all by herself?
“Who the hell is that at this hour?” Bunny got up to answer the door just as Tallhya came flying down the stairs.
“Maybe it’s Walter?” she blurted out. Simone and Bunny raced in front of their sister to the door just as Ginger joined them stretching from her nap.
“Hello ladies, may I come in?” Pastor Cassius Street stood on the doorstep in a royal blue suit. Ginger was pissed to be seen in booty shorts and a cropped top without her hair done right.
“Sure, come on in Pastor,” Simone offered giving her best imitation of Me-Ma who would always welcome people into her house with a smile, even if that person had been the devil which this man had already proved to be. The pastor entered taking a good look around.
“How are you ladies holding up with your grand-mother’s passing?” he asked in his best caring concerned man of God voice.
“We’re doing just fine Pastor,” Bunny snapped refusing to pretend this leper was a welcomed guest. What she really wanted was to give him a beat down for manipulating their grandmother.
“So, I wanted to have a little talk with you ladies to say that what your grandmother did, donating all of her money and property to the church was an amazingly generous thing.”
“We’re not entirely sure that she did. With all due respect Pastor, we find it a little bit suspicious that she had only had the papers drawn up a week before she passed,” Simone told him trying to keep the rage out of her voice. She had been taught early on that it was better to catch with honey than with flies and right now she wanted to catch this snake in his lies.
“Well, anyway,” the Pastor continued, ignoring their concerns, “I think your grandmother would have preferred it that one or all of you have the opportunity to buy this house from the church. Wouldn’t that be lovely? To keep it in the family?”
“Wait? That’s some bullshit!” Ginger’s words mirrored what they had all been thinking.
“We need to have our attorney look into this,” Simone told him. “The will has to pass through probate before anything can be done with our Me-Ma’s things Pastor.”
“Yes, that’s right Ms. Banks. So that will take thirty days and by then this property might have already been listed with multiple offers. I just wanted
to do the right thing by you ladies and to give you first dibs.” He had the nerve to act like he was actually doing them a favor. Simone had to grab Bunny before she went upside his head. Ginger was already balling up her fist ready to wop him when Tallhya pushed the pastor toward the door.
“Thank you Pastor. We will call you,” Simone grabbed him by the arm and hurriedly walked him out of the door, and closed it behind her. “That fucking crook!” Simone was disappointed in herself that she was cursing as of late, but she was reaching her boiling point. “He is not going to steal Me-Ma’s money and get away with it,” she stated. The rest of the sisters all nodded agreeing, but none of them had a solution.
-31-
“How’s it going?” Jackie checked in with Simone as she handed over her daily cash with a receipt she needed to check off and hand back after she validated that the count was correct.
“I will tell you at the end of the day,” Simone said with a smile. “So far things are going well, but the bank hasn’t opened yet so its going to depend on how many guns I have shoved in my face,” she told her only half kidding.
“We have added extra security measures. There will be another security guard posted outside of the bank between the hours of nine and five. All the studies show that the last hour is the safest. Also from now on we are going to rotate and distribute marked bills so that way nobody has them every day. You will know they are the marked ones by the green band holding them together. And last week they had three more cameras installed that are linked to the police station. There is a button near station four that when it’s pushed, sends a signal in case of emergency.” Jackie pointed at the button on the station next to her.
“That makes me feel a whole lot more secure.”
“So the next time somebody thinks they can just rob this bank they will be on candid camera and the police will have surrounded this place in seven to ten minutes.”
“Wow, that’s great,” Simone answered thinking how she couldn’t wait to tell Bunny this so she can stop with her crazy thinking. Just then Mr. McPearson stopped in front of her station and added his ten cents.
“We want our employees to feel safe and to know that we’re protecting them. What happened at this bank will never happen again. I’m actually looking forward to the next time someone thinks they can just come in here and steal from me,” he said with a pompous attitude. Simone didn’t know if she was being paranoid or if this man had actually just made an indirectly daring her to try something.
“That’s good to know.” She gave him her best fake smile. What an asshole, she thought before turning back to keep counting her money.
“Don’t let him bother you. Just be grateful that you don’t have to live with his ass.” Jackie elbowed Simone to make her laugh.
The rest of the morning went relatively quick and painless with no major issues before lunch at least. When Simone counted out her bills to make sure all her numbers added up she was actually pleased that it equaled out perfectly. Last thing she needed was for Mr. McPearson to accuse her of stealing ten cents.
“You can take lunch,” Jackie told her. “I ordered a pizza and there is still half left in the lounge.”
“Thanks, but I need to get some fresh air. Thought I’d head over to Starbucks and grab something.” After a quick lunch, she returned to the bank and as luck would have it, walked in just in time to come accross the last person she wanted to see.
“Oh, look who finally got a job,” Marjorie quipped under her breath as Simone passed. She decided to ignore her and went to clock in and return to her station. No sooner had she opened her window then Marjorie came over no doubt to mess with Simone. She waved a handful of hundred-dollar bills, money that probably belonged to Simone in the first place.
“What do you want Marjorie?”
“I just wanted to see what it looked like when a princess actually worked for a living. Your father would be so proud especially after he paid for three college degrees and the best job you could get only requires a high school diploma. Things must really be tough out there in the real world?” She laughed waving the money in front of Simone’s face.
“Look, why don’t you do us both a huge favor and walk away.” Simone had to do everything she could to keep herself from punching Marjorie in her smug face.
“I see you’re not so big and bad now are you? After all you don’t want to risk the only way that you know how to make money now do you? Because I’m not giving you any of mine.” She taunted Simone loving the fact that by being at work her wings were basically clipped so she couldn’t fight back or sucker punch her like last time.
“Walk the hell away from me!” Simone hissed in a low voice trying to keep her composure and not alert the other tellers.
“Maybe if you hadn’t been such a Class-A brat all those years twisting my husband around your little finger I might have been more generous to you. But I never liked you. Not for one single second. Your father may have thought I did, but that was just great acting on my part honey. See I knew that if I were going to manipulate your father into marriage I had to at least pretend to be the loving stepmother. And I did damn well for all those years, which is why all this money is mine. It’s the least I should get for putting up with your boring-ass, lousy fuck father, and his second rate beauty pageant brat. So as you’re slaving away at this little job just know that I am somewhere having a great life spending all your dumb-ass daddy’s money and getting the shit fucked out of me on our bed.” Well, Simone had taken all she could.
“Fuck you!” she seethed at Marjorie who now had her stepdaughter exactly where she wanted her.
“Excuse me? What did you say to me?” she raised her voice intentionally sounding insulted.
“You heard me,” Simone stared so enrage at her stepmother that she was not paying any attention to amount of ruckus she was causing. The other tellers and the customers were starting to stare in her direction, but the biggest problem was walking straight toward her window. “I said fuck you! You bitch!”
“Ms. Banks!” Mr. McPearson arrived at her window in time to get an earful of the words she had just spit at Marjorie who could not have been more pleased with the outcome.
“Is this how you train your employees to speak to your valued customers? If this is the case then I may have to take my seven figure account elsewhere.” Marjorie admonished the bank manager who shot Simone the dirtiest look.
“I’m so sorry about that ma’am. I will have my associate finish your transaction with us today. I hope this does not interfere with our business relationship and as a courtesy we will waive this month’s account charge. I will assure you this will not happen again.” Mr. McPearson said as he turned toward Simone. “Ms. Banks, I need to see you in my office right away.” He stated before walking away.
“Dammit!” Simone could not believe that she had walked right into the perfectly orchestrated trap that witch had set especially for her. As furious as she was at Marjorie the person she really wanted to slap was herself for being that gullible. She braced herself walking into Mr. McPearson’s office.
“You do understand that you are still under a ninety day probation period Ms. Banks? That means you are not a permanent employee with the bank and that your behavior during that period is closely monitored. It also means that at any moment we can let you go without a disciplinary hearing. What you said to that woman is more than enough ground for you be dismissed do you understand?” Mr. McPearson barked at Simone as she sat in front of his desk.
“I really need this job,” she pleaded not knowing how she would deal if she were fired and all because of that damn Marjorie.
“When I hired you it was because not only were you educated, but your qualifications made me think one day you could graduate to management. But what I’ve seen since the robbery makes me think you’re not the kind of person who can handle this job. Maybe it’s best for you to go back to sitting on your couch or whatever you did before you bothered to get your first real job a
t almost thirty. I mean I never really delved into it but what did you do for a living?” He insisted. As badly as Simone wanted Mr. McPearson to be the second person she told off today she held her tongue.
“Mr. McPearson I really need this job.”
“I’m just not certain that you’re the working type. At least not this kind of work.” Simone got that she had just been called a hooker, but she tried to pretend that’s not what this asshole manager was suggesting.
“I can handle it. I just . . . I can not explain in detail my problem with Marjorie, but I really am sorry. And if you give me one more chance you will not regret it, sir.” But the look he gave her meant she was out of chances.
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Simone exited the bank to find Detective Dugan leaning against his car parked in front of the bank.
“Can I walk you to your car?” he asked but instead of answering first she glanced back toward the bank to see if her boss was watching her. The last thing she needed after talking her way into keeping her job was to see her talking to Detective Dugan and have McPearson start to think that she’s being sneaky or keeping something from him. The detective saw her reaction to him being there and figured out what she had been thinking. “I already talked to the powers that be in the bank and explained that every one of their employees had been cleared of any involvement in the robbery.”
“That’s nice. A relief,” she told him although she knew she was innocent it helped that her boss wasn’t still thinking she may have been involved. Something told her that he didn’t need another excuse to dislike her. “Is that why you’re here?” Dugan who normally felt self-assured found himself a little nervous in front of Simone. Maybe it had to do with the reason that he had to see her.
“Uhm no, would you like to get a quick coffee?”
“So you’re here to invite me to coffee?” she asked not convinced that was his real intention.
