Get You Good

by Rhonda Bowen

  Sydney sighed.

  “And then there’s the whole money for the studio thing. Did you know he’s gonna spend—”

  “One hundred fifty thousand? Yeah,” Sydney said. “That’s what we were talking about yesterday when he called. He wants to sell me part of Decadent for that. Problem is . . .”

  “. . . you don’t have one hundred fifty thousand,” Lissandra finished.

  “Exactly.”

  Both sisters sat staring at contestants battling it out on an episode of Iron Chef. Sydney couldn’t help but see it as a metaphor for her current situation. The whole thing had become a battle between Sydney and Dean over who would win the shop. Already it was causing tension between them. No longer was her conversation with her brother a conversation with her brother. Everything was potentially a discussion about Decadent.

  “Zelia thinks I should let him sell it,” Sydney said after a moment.

  Lissandra snorted. “She would. She always takes Dean’s side in everything. I’m sure Jackie would agree, too. It’s not like she and Dad split on amicable terms.”

  “Don’t say that. . . .”

  “Why not?” Lissandra snapped. “We all know it’s true. And yet we never talk about it, like if we don’t mention it, it’ll be less real. You know the two of them were crazy. You couldn’t even mention Dad in Mom’s presence after the first divorce. . . .”

  “Couldn’t have been that bad. She married him twice.”

  “Probably ’cause she was pregnant. Twice.”

  “Lissandra . . .”

  “Sydney, can we please keep it real.” Lissandra’s eyes were hard as they stared at her sister. “You know while Mom and Dad were busy being mad at each other we had to look out for ourselves. Nobody in this family ever gave us anything. Even Leroy; when he kicked the bucket he gave everything to Dean. . . .”

  “He gave us this house,” Sydney said in an effort to defend decisions of her father that she herself didn’t understand.

  “Stop making excuses for him,” Lissandra said, annoyed. “I watched you pour your whole life into that shop, Syd. Dean never worked there one day in his life. And now as soon as he has ownership for it, he wants to sell it right out from under you.”

  Lissandra got up and moved to the couch where Sydney was sitting. She took Sydney’s hand.

  “We are not going to let him take Decadent from us, Syd,” Lissandra said. “No one is going to take it from us.”

  “That sounds great in theory, Lissandra, but in reality it’s a lot more complicated.” Sydney turned off the TV and threw the remote onto the coffee table with enough force to send the battery cover flying. She understood how Lissandra felt because it was how she felt all the time. Those were the things she thought but would never say; the things she buried by avoiding her mother.

  “I don’t want to lose the shop, but I don’t have a hundred fifty thousand dollars,” Sydney said.

  “But you have a hundred,” Lissandra said. “And I have thirty-five.”

  “That still leaves us fifteen short,” Sydney said.

  “I’ll give it to you.”

  Sydney and Lissandra turned around to see JJ sitting at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll put in the fifteen thousand. All together that gives us the one hundred fifty Dean is asking for.”

  Sydney got up and started pacing. “One hundred thousand dollars. That’s everything I have.”

  “And what, our fifty is chump change?” Lissandra asked, an eyebrow raised.

  “No, you don’t understand,” Sydney said. “This is everything I have. Everything I have worked and saved and invested for the past ten years.”

  “We get it,” JJ said. “This is a big deal. I can’t tell you what to do, but if you want to do this, if you want to buy the shop, I’ll help you.”

  “Same here,” Lissandra said.

  Sydney sat down and put her head in her hands. How she wished there was someone she could talk to about this. These were the times when she missed her father the most. But any feelings she had for him were mixed at best.

  She took a deep breath and sat back in the couch. Yes, she would be giving up everything she had for a chance at owning just a piece of Decadent. It was a risk. But that everything would mean nothing if she lost the shop that was her life. She had no choice.

  “OK,” Sydney said with a nod. “I’ll do it.”

  Lissandra picked up the cordless phone from the end table and handed it to Sydney.

  “Then call him.”

  Chapter 8

  “Ladies, let’s go! You know how Mom hates it when we’re late.”

  JJ’s strident voice coming from downstairs grated on Sydney’s nerves as she tried to smear more concealer over the bags under her eyes. She was usually in church every Saturday, but not at the early and ungodly hour Jackie had insisted they arrive this week.

  Normally she wouldn’t have been this annoyed about the whole thing, but her week had been a handful and more. She had spent most of it meeting with lawyers and the Decadent’s financial accountant to make the changes for the store. In record time, a new agreement for the ownership of the store had been drawn up, so that Sydney and her sisters now owned forty percent of the store and Dean the other 60 percent. He still had majority ownership, but Sydney wasn’t worried.

  The main reason they had rushed the whole thing was so Dean could have his money, and now that it had been transferred into his account he was happier than a kid on a snow day. Thomas, Decadent’s accountant, had been concerned about Sydney giving Dean the money so soon since it would still take a few weeks before the papers were filed, but Sydney knew her brother had people waiting on him to get things going for his own business, and she didn’t want to stand in his way. Besides, it was a pretty simple transaction. Everything would be fine.

  “Lissandra, hurry up,” Sydney growled as she snapped her compact shut and dropped it into her purse. “’Cause if JJ calls me again, she’s going to make it to church with one black eye.”

  Lissandra responded with several words unfit for airplay before stomping out of her bedroom like an angry bull.

  “Why does she think she can run my life like this?” Lissandra spat. “I am twenty-eight years old, not twelve. She can’t make me do anything.”

  Lissandra tended to limit her church attendance to those mandated by their mother.

  “In theory,” Sydney said as she headed down the stairs with Lissandra behind her. “But would you rather spend a few hours in church or deal with a month-long guilt trip from Jackie. Come on, she only asks you to show up once a month. And you remember how it was the last time you didn’t show up a few months back.”

  Lissandra grumbled something else unrepeatable as she slipped on a light spring jacket.

  “Hmm,” JJ mumbled, slipping on her sunglasses. “A mouth like yours could use some Jesus.”

  “You’re breathing your last breath, JJ,” Lissandra said.

  Sydney pushed JJ out the door, and got between her two sisters. It was going to be a long morning.

  The ride to church proceeded pretty much in silence until JJ turned the car into an unfamiliar lot.

  “So Mom switched churches again,” Sydney murmured. She was hardly surprised. Jackie was about as consistent with her church home as she was with her husbands, and so instead of trying to keep up, Sydney had stuck to attending her father’s church, which was only ten minutes from the house.

  “Yup,” JJ said, pulling into a parking space. “This is Mom’s new church, Granville Park.”

  Lissandra huffed and pushed open the back door. “Great. Now we have to smile and be fake with a whole new bunch of people.”

  JJ looked over her shoulder. “You don’t have to be fake, Lissandra. You could just be yourself. God accepts us all, just as we are.”

  “Don’t start, Saint Judith,” Lissandra said, gathering her purse and turning to get out. “And don’t think I’m staying here a minute past one.”

  JJ turned to Sydney.


  “She’s a grown woman, JJ,” Sydney said, searching through her purse for lip gloss. “Leave her be.”

  JJ shook her head. “I don’t know what happened to her. We were all grown up the same way. How did we end up so different?”

  “Life,” Sydney said, opening the car door. “It punches all of us in the gut eventually. And you can either look up for help, or look down and get bitter.”

  “Which one did you choose?” JJ asked. Her questions stopped Sydney with one foot out the door.

  “Well, I’m here, aren’t I?”

  JJ slipped on her sunglasses and opened her own car door. “Are you?”

  Sydney wasn’t sure why JJ’s words bothered her, but they did. Sydney was nothing like Lissandra. Sure, she might not be the scripture-quoting Christian JJ was, but she made it her duty to be in church every weekend. Everyone’s relationship was different. There was no reason to feel guilty about not being like her sister.

  Nonetheless, tense silence followed the three of them across the packed parking lot and up the steps of the colonial-style church building.

  The service hadn’t begun yet, but already the church was half full. Sydney forced her lips into a smile for the greeter who handed her a program, before following her sisters inside the sanctuary and up the main aisle to the middle rows on the right, where her mother and her two other sisters were already seated.

  As always, Jackie sat at the end of the row, nearest to the aisle, while all of Sydney’s sisters filled the rest of the bench. It had been that way since they were little, and had served as a strategic point to prevent busy-bodied toddlers from crawling out of the aisle and making themselves a nuisance throughout the church. Sydney guessed it still served as a deterrent for busybody daughters who might attempt to leave church before the service was completely over.

  “Good morning, Mother,” Sydney whispered, before kissing Jackie on the cheek.

  “Good morning, sweetheart,” Jackie replied, touching her daughter’s cheek with a smile. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “You say that every month,” Sydney said with a small smile.

  “And every month it’s true.”

  Sydney couldn’t help but look at her mother. She was almost sixty, but was holding on to that early fifties look with ease. Except for the highlights of gray in her straight, shoulder-length auburn hair, which her hairdresser took care of with some professional grade Dark and Lovely, there were very few signs of her aging. Her cocoa-colored skin was naturally enhanced with warm undertones that gave a sparkle to her clear brown eyes and highlights to her high cheekbones. Furthermore, while the reality of carrying six children to term had added a bit of extra girth to her short five-foot-five frame, it didn’t even come close to putting her in the big-momma category. It was little wonder Jackie had been able to attract three different husbands in her lifetime. She was beautiful. And that beauty had matured well over the years.

  Jackie motioned to the others to scoot down to make space beside her for Sydney.

  “Oh no, that’s OK,” Sydney said. “I was just gonna sit behind . . .”

  “You’ll sit here,” Jackie said, motioning to the space beside her.

  Sydney paused, but then eased into the space between her mother and Zelia.

  Jackie smiled ruefully and shook her head. “I remember when you, Lissandra, and JJ were younger. The three of you would fight each other to see who would sit next to me.”

  “We were kids then, Mother,” Sydney said, scanning the program the greeter had given her. “And back then it was only three of us.”

  “That is true,” Jackie said wistfully. “But I remember it like it was yesterday. You were the sweetest thing. JJ would claim her spot as the youngest, but as soon as Lissandra started to cry you would let her have my other side. You were always looking out for your sisters.”

  Jackie ran the back of her fingers against Sydney’s cheek gently. “You still do. I know I can always count on you for that.”

  The curse of being the oldest. Everyone was always counting on her to do something, to make the right decision for everyone. Who did she get to count on?

  Sydney ignored the emotions that tumbled through her, and she flipped to the other page of the program.

  “So what’s with the new church?” Sydney asked as she scanned the program for any familiar names. “I thought you loved Toronto Central.”

  She felt her mother take a deep breath beside her, and she glanced over in time to see Jackie purse her lips and turn her head toward the front.

  “Sometimes the Lord calls us to make changes.”

  Sydney closed the program. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. . . .”

  “Mother . . .”

  “I said, nothing happened,” Jackie repeated, closing the topic with the look in her eyes.

  Sydney shook her head and turned to the front. Something had happened. Jackie only changed churches if she was getting married or if there was drama, and since Jackie hadn’t introduced Sydney to any special friends, she knew that it had to do with some drama with her sisters.

  She remembered the first time they’d had to move because of something like that. She had only been twelve years old. Rebecca Jenkins’ mother had planned an eleventh-birthday party for her daughter and invited every girl at the church except Sydney and her sisters. Sydney hadn’t been surprised. She saw the way Rebecca’s mother would look at her whenever she saw Sydney and Rebecca talking together. She knew the real reason why Rebecca’s mother would never let Rebecca come to their house.

  But Jackie thought differently. Even though Sydney tried to tell her that they weren’t invited, Jackie wouldn’t believe it. She insisted that it had been a mistake, and on the day of the party she packed Sydney and her sisters into the car and took them over to the Jenkins’ home for the party. They only got as far as the front door. There they were told that the party was almost over, and there was no point in them staying since all the food was gone and everyone was getting picked up soon anyway. Mrs Jenkins had smiled and apologized, but her smile hadn’t reached her eyes, and never once did she look at Sydney or her sisters, who were standing behind Jackie. Sydney watched a look pass over her mother’s face that she would over the years become very familiar with. The next weekend, they were headed off to a new church.

  Sydney sighed as she looked around the pool of unfamiliar faces. Maybe this was why she preferred going to a huge church where almost no one knew her. She hated being a new person, being the outsider. She despised the way people stared at you and whispered out of the corners of their mouths at you when they thought you weren’t looking; the way they judged your clothes and your hair and the car you parked in the parking lot.

  She could hear the stories they came up with as they watched Jackie walk in with her six children trailing behind her. “She never heard of birth control?”; “How many men did she go through?” or “I bet those girls are as wild as their mother.” They might as well have been speaking their judgmental words aloud. Sometimes they did, and sometimes their children would them repeat them out loud to Sydney and her sisters. And sometimes Sydney and her sisters, usually Lissandra, would have to respond to those words with a fist in the face. And sometimes that would lead to another move. Was it any wonder that Jackie had to resort to ultimatums to get them to go to church together now that they were adults?

  Sydney was about to check her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, when she heard the organ at the front. The congregation stood and the service began. Sydney had been to enough of them that she could go through the motions with her eyes closed. It was only when they called for a Sis Isaacs for special music that she looked down the bench for JJ. Sure, the rest of them could carry a tune if necessary, but JJ was the singer. It was Josephine, however, who stood up.

  Sydney’s eyes met Lissandra’s equally surprised ones.

  “What the hell?” Lissandra mouthed. Sydney shrugged. She didn’t know what was going on either.
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  Sydney leaned close to Zelia’s ear and whispered. “I didn’t know Josephine could sing.”

  Zelia glanced at Jackie before whispering back. “It’s Josephine. Is there anything she can’t do?”

  Sydney bit her lip to keep from laughing as she turned back to the front to listen to her sister. Josephine’s voice was OK, but it was nothing compared to JJ’s. But you couldn’t tell from the look on Jackie’s face. Sydney shook her head. A mother’s love.

  “So I guess it’s a competition now,” Sydney whispered to Zelia. “JJ versus Josephine.”

  Zelia shook her head. “There’s no competition. JJ doesn’t sing anymore.”

  Sydney raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” Zelia whispered. “And can you blame her. Who wants to compete with that?” she said, nodding toward Jackie.

  Sydney looked over and saw the look of utter pride on her mother’s face as she hung on Josephine’s every note. Sydney and Zelia need not have bothered themselves whispering. They could have been shouting at the top of their lungs and Jackie would have heard no one but Josephine.

  Letting out a deep breath, Sydney crossed her legs and prepared to wait for the most awkward two hours of her month to be over. She never got anything from coming to church with her mother. She never heard anything because she was always waiting to hear someone’s slick comments about her family. She never saw the Spirit move, because she was watching for every eye that might turn their way. It was like gingerly sitting on a cracked bench, waiting for your behind to hit the floor.

  As soon as the last words of the closing prayer fell, she was on her feet and down the aisle toward the back. The only person who beat her outside was Lissandra, whom she found puffing on a cigarette behind the car.

  “I thought you quit that,” Sydney said frowning, though she had secretly suspected that her sister hadn’t. More than once she had smelled cigarette smoke near the back door of the house.

  “I tried,” Lissandra said, taking one last puff before dropping the cigarette on the ground and grinding it out with her shoe. “But Saturday mornings at church put me over the edge.”