Raw Deal (Beauty for Ashes: Book One)

by Dayo Benson

  Sam seemed to read my mind. “Yeah, my room is five minutes away, but if you want to go with Emily, I’ll go and get the book for you.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ll come with you.”

  Sam looked amused. “Well, you’re looking at me all suspicious.”

  “Really? Just giving you the once over, making sure you’re okay.”

  “So you’re married?” he asked. He started walking, and I fell into step beside him.

  “Yeah, I got married just before Easter.”

  “I’ll be getting married soon, too, I think.”

  “Nice.” Let’s hope it wasn’t because she was pregnant.

  “So, how’s it going?” Sam asked me.

  “How’s what going?”

  “Your marriage.”

  “It could be better,” I said honestly.

  “Isn’t a little early to talk like that? You should still be all starry-eyed with love.”

  “I’ve always been a realist.”

  “A realist or a pessimist?”

  “A bit of both.”

  “So who’s the lucky man? Anyone I might know?”

  “Probably not. He’s an accounting student.”

  “Really? I know lots of guys in accounting. What’s his name?”

  “Carl Layton.”

  “Carl Layton!” Sam exclaimed. “We play soccer. I didn’t know he was married!”

  “Yeah, he’s always with a different girl every day, isn’t he?”

  Sam looked uncomfortable. We walked in silence for a while, and I regretted the heeled shoes I was wearing.

  “How much longer?” I asked Sam.

  “Just round this corner.”

  We turned a corner, and an enormous apartment complex loomed into view.

  “You live in Ashwater House?”

  Sam nodded. Ashwater was the best accommodation on campus, a step up from Marigold. Sam led me to the gates. There was an intercom on the wall, and he pushed a few buttons and said his name. The gate heaved and started to open.

  I followed Sam to the huge building, and I had to sign in as a visitor. He then led me to his apartment, which was on the ground floor.

  “You can wait here,” Sam said, showing me to the den. “The book is in my room.”

  I nodded and sat down on the chocolate brown sofa.

  A few moments later he returned. “You can use the photocopier in my study if you want. Do you know which chapters you need?”

  “No.”

  “Well, they’re listed on the reading list. Do you have that?”

  “Yes, I copied yours before.”

  Sam led me to his small study room. Each wall was lined with bookshelves, and the photocopier he had mentioned stood in a gap between a computer and a bookshelf.

  Sam walked to the study table and flipped through a file. “Do you only need the notes for this semester, because I’ve got last semester’s stuff here too if you want it?”

  “Yeah, I could probably do with copying some of it.” I’d missed quite a few classes last semester too.

  “Okay, you go through the file and choose the parts you need, while I start copying this book.”

  I grinned at Sam. “Thanks.”

  I sat at his table and went through his file, extracting any pages that didn’t look familiar.

  Sam handed me a wad of papers. “Those are all the chapters you need. Apparently, Professor Jackson is gonna base some of his exam questions on them.”

  I put the papers in my purse.

  “Is that all you need from last semester?” Sam asked, taking the pile of notes I’d extracted from his file over to the photocopier.

  “Yes.”

  He started copying again, and I got up to look through one of his bookshelves. “You have so many books on religion,” I commented after I scanned a whole shelf and all its books had titles like, Proof That God Exists, How to Win Your Friends for Christ, and Lifestyle Evangelism. One entire row was filled with Bibles. I picked one up.

  “Are you a Christian?” Sam asked, turning from the photocopier to look at me.

  “No, but I have a Bible. My best friend and my ex-boyfriend at high school became Christians in our senior year. My ex gave me the Bible.”

  “That’s great. So why aren’t you a Christian then?”

  “Because I’m just not.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t see how it’ll help me. My dad died two years ago, and my mom and I had to deal with that. So, if God is really there, I definitely don’t want anything to do with Him if He could let something like that happen. I’m not interested in a God like that.” I opened the Bible. “Anyway, let’s talk about something else, because nothing you say will change my mind.” I looked at his numerous books on evangelism and ‘winning others’ to Christ. “No matter how many evangelism techniques you know.”

  Sam turned back to the copier. “Why did you break up with your ex who gave you a Bible?”

  “He broke up with me. He got saved and decided he couldn’t date a sinner like me anymore.” I moved to the next shelf. It mainly contained textbooks on media, mass communication, and writing.

  “You sound kinda bitter about it.”

  “Well, I was really hurt at the time, but I don’t care anymore. He’s at college in New York now, which is good, because it means that I don’t have to see him.”

  “I’m from New York. I want to transfer back there, but I’m still thinking about it,” Sam said. “What about your best friend who got saved?”

  “She’s in New York, too, in Med School. For all I know, they could be together now.”

  “Yeah, but like you said, you don’t care, do you?”

  I decided not to answer that question. I looked at the Bible I was holding.

  “Lexi, I want to make a deal with you.”

  I groaned, knowing it was going to be related to religion. “Depends what the deal is.”

  “Well, I want to tell you about how I got saved—” I raised my hand in protest, and Sam smiled. “Wait up. The deal is that if you let me tell you about my personal journey to salvation, I will promise never talk to you about God again if you don’t want me to.”

  Sam’s cell phone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket. “Hi, Shawna, haven’t you got your key?” He paused. “Yeah, I’m in the study.” He hung up and smiled at me. “That’s Shawna. I think you guys will get on really well.”

  “Who’s Shawna?”

  We heard the front door open and then close again, and light footsteps approached in the hallway. A bubbly looking red head appeared in the doorway.

  “I didn’t want to use my key and just come in if you’re not in. That’s why I thought I’d call first,” Shawna chirped. She perched on the study table and smiled sweetly at Sam. Then she looked at me questioningly.

  I looked back at her for a moment. She reminded me of Sandy in many ways, with her petite frame and ivory skin that offset her fiery hair and huge aqua eyes. I felt a slight tinge of envy, although I didn’t really know why. As a model, I was used to meeting unusually pretty girls, and I was never usually jealous of anyone.

  “This is Lexi,” Sam explained to Shawna, and she nodded, her hair catching the light and shimmering like red gold. “She’s on my course, but we only met today. She needed to copy some of my notes.”

  Shawna grinned. “Hi, you look really familiar.”

  “Maybe you’ve seen me on campus.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” She dug a pink flyer out of her pocket and passed it to me. “What do you do on Thursday nights?”

  I looked at the flyer. It was for Alpha and Omega sorority meetings. “It depends on the week.”

  “Well, it’d be great if you would pay us a visit.”

  “Okay.” I hadn’t joined any sorority yet, so I might just check them out. I put the flyer in my purse.

  Shawna snapped her fingers. “Did Sam just say your name is Lexi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you Lexi Dixon?”

&nb
sp; I gave her a curious look. “Yeah.”

  “How cool!” Shawna said with a tinkling laugh. “Sam, you’ve been alone in your room with a swimsuit model. Should I be suspicious?”

  Sam switched off the copier and handed me another wad of papers. “All done. So you’re a swimsuit model, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I’m not a swimsuit model,” I said rolling my eyes. “But I have done swimsuit before.”

  “Well, I only know because just last night, how funny, I was watching the fashion channel, and there was a short biography about you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, it was just like ten minutes. But it showed some of your pictures and some runway footage too. I thought you were really beautiful. I can’t believe the coincidence that I’m meeting you today. They said you were based in England.”

  “I used to be.” I picked up the Bible I’d taken from Sam’s shelf to return it.

  “So how is it being a Christian model?” Shawna asked interestedly, her blue-green eyes darkening with intensity. “A lot of Christians don’t agree with it, but I haven’t decided where I stand on the issue. I know you model swimsuits and lingerie as well, so how do you justify that?”

  “Did they say on TV that I’m a Christian?” I asked surprised.

  “No.” She looked at the Bible I was holding.

  “This is your boyfriend’s Bible, not mine. I am no way a Christian.”

  “Actually, Lexi and I made a deal just before you arrived,” Sam said. “I promised never to talk to her about God again if she’d let me tell her about how I got saved.”

  Shawna fixed her gemstone eyes on me. “Sounds like a fair enough deal.”

  “I didn’t agree to that deal,” I said. I looked at my watch. It was about time I headed home.

  “How about Shawna tells you how she got saved then?” Sam asked. “Her story is actually even more riveting than mine.”

  Shawna chuckled. “True, true.” She looked at me. “Are you sure you want to hear my story though? Maybe I should get you some tissues in case you cry.”

  “It can’t be that moving,” I said offhandedly, sure that she was going to harp on about how she went to a church, immediately just felt an atmosphere of love, and just knew that there had to be a God somewhere. I’d heard enough of that from Michelle and Monica.

  “Shall we move to the den?” Sam suggested.

  I placed the Bible on the shelf and picked up my purse. It was heavy from all the notes. I gave Sam a hug. “Thanks for letting me copy your notes and everything. You’re a star.”

  “I know. That’s why Shawna loves me,” Sam joked.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Shawna said with a toss of her head.

  “Well, I really appreciate it,” I told Sam. “I so owe you.”

  “You can pay me back by listening to Shawna.”

  We moved off to the den, and I took a seat. “Do I really have time to sit and listen to your story of conversion when I have so much work to do?” I had a whole semester of work to catch up on.

  Shawna raised an eyebrow. “How come you’ve had to photocopy all that? Exactly how many classes did you skip?”

  “Is it any of your business?”

  “Hey, hey, ladies,” Sam said. “No catfights in this apartment. Take it out into lobby.”

  Shawna sprawled out on the couch. She smiled up at Sam. “Go make us something to eat?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sam left for the kitchen.

  “You know what? You Christian girls are all the same,” I told Shawna.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re all happy and bubbly and all ‘life is great’.”

  “Maybe that’s because it is.”

  “Well, good for you then. Not everyone is that lucky.”

  “Being happy doesn’t mean you have no problems. Life is mixed, Lexi. There are good times and hard times, but you can still be happy regardless.”

  What could she possibly know about hard times? “You have a great boyfriend, or fiancé, or whatever he is.” I wished I hadn’t married Carl. My life would be less complicated right now if I hadn’t.

  Shawna smiled and sat up. “I’m not happy because of Sam. He definitely makes me happy, but he’s not my reason. I’m only happy because I have Jesus. Apart from Him, I really have nothing to be happy about.” She paused, looking at the ring on my finger. “But you have a fiancé too. Or a husband?”

  “Husband,” I sighed. “The worst mistake of my life.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t want to know. You’ll be so scandalized, and I don’t want to ruin your innocence.”

  Shawna laughed, “Yeah, right, I’m no angel. Anyway, I’m supposed to be telling you about how I got saved, so zip it and listen.”

  I looked deliberately bored.

  “When I was fourteen I ran away from home for the first time. My mom was on drugs, and she was crazy. So, I just upped and left.” Shawna looked at me for a reaction, but I plastered a passive Dr. Paula style expression onto my face. “Anyway, I went back home after sleeping on a park bench for two days, and my mom hadn’t even noticed I’d been gone. Two weeks later, I asked my mom for some money so that I could buy new clothes. I was sick of getting teased at school because of my clothes and everything. But, of course, my mom needed every penny she had to feed her drug habit. That made me so angry, but I bottled it up for about two years. Every time I got home and saw my mom in one of her drug-induced comas, I hated her guts. Anyway, so by the time I was sixteen, I was like an outcast at school and nobody wanted to know me. One day, I got home and told my mom what I thought of her. I cursed her to her face, and she slapped me. So, I said I was leaving and never coming back, and I didn’t.”

  “You haven’t mentioned your dad.”

  “He died when I was twelve. It’s partly the reason my mom turned to drugs. She was really depressed.”

  I was shocked. I thought about my own mom, and I was glad she hadn’t done that. As much as I resented her for ignoring me, she was a million times better than Shawna’s mom.

  “Sometimes, I feel I was unfair toward my mom, as she obviously couldn’t cope with the loss. But at the end of the day, I was the child, and she was the adult. Lots of people lose their husbands, but they’re still able to bring up their kids.”

  “How did your dad die?” I asked, suddenly more interested in Shawna’s story.

  “He was a cop, and he got shot on duty by a drug dealer that he was trying to bust. Ironic, isn’t it, that my mom would turn to drugs when it was a drug dealer that killed my dad?”

  Now I was confused. How could Shawna possibly be happy when all this had happened to her? “Doesn’t all that make you feel angry sometimes?”

  Shawna shook her head. “I used to be, but what is there to be angry about? Dad’s dead. Hunting down the man who killed him and making him pay isn’t going to bring him back. I gave up all hopes of murdering my dad’s murderer long ago. You just can’t be happy if you carry so much hate around with you.”

  I nodded, my eyes stinging. Maybe that was my problem. I was carrying the burden of my dad’s death around with me all the time. No wonder I couldn’t get over it. “My dad died two years ago in a car crash. My mom was in the car with him, and it still haunts her. The guy that crashed into them was drunk, and he got out without a scratch. ”

  We were both quiet for a moment. The pain of my dad’s death was still so fresh. It welled up within me like a bitter poison, stinging every cell in my body. Shawna came and perched on the armrest of the sofa chair I was sitting on. She placed a hand on my shoulder. I closed my eyes willing the tears away even as they escaped from under my squeezed shut eyelids. I heard Sam enter the room, and I opened my eyes.

  “So what part are we up to?” Sam asked.

  “Still the beginning.” Shawna left the room for a moment and returned with a roll of tissue. She handed it to me. “That smells delicious,” she told Sam. “Curry?”

  “Yeah.”r />
  “Do you like curry?” Shawna asked me.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be leaving soon.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t mind making a bit more,” Sam offered.

  “No, it’s okay.”

  Sam returned to the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your dad,” Shawna said. “It’s so hard, isn’t it? I was really close to my dad, so I just couldn’t get used to the fact that he was gone forever.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to my dad being gone.”

  “I know. It’s hard.” Shawna settled on the armrest again. “Well, as I was saying, I said I was never coming back, and I didn’t for nearly three years. When I left, I started thinking about how I could make money so that I could get my own place. That same night I met a guy who wanted to use me to sell drugs, but the way I saw it, drugs had killed my dad and ruined my mom. I wanted nothing to do with them.

  “I asked him if there was anything else I could do to make money, and he took me to a club and introduced me to this guy who owned an escort agency. To cut a long story short, I became an escort, and I got really popular with clients because of what I was willing to do, and I made lots of money. But I hardly saw any of it because my boss kept most of it.

  Shawna ran her hand through her hair a couple times and a pained expression crossed her features momentarily. “I wasn’t happy. I felt like trash. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to go back to my mom, and I had nowhere else to go. While I was an escort, I had a really nice apartment and my boss was paying for it. Anyway, I left when my boss, who by the way was a married man, started getting a little too familiar with me. Something horrible happened, and I packed my things and left.”

  “Something horrible? Like what?” I asked.

  “That’s personal.” Shawna frowned.

  “How long were you an escort?” I asked.

  “About two years. When I left, I checked into this horrible cheap hotel, because I wanted to save as much money as I could. I started looking for somewhere else to live and I found a three-bedroom apartment that was being shared by two girls. I moved into the third bedroom and started wondering what to do with my life. I had no qualifications because I had dropped out of high school at sixteen, and even if I did have the qualifications to get into college, I wasn’t interested in studying. I wanted quick money. Plus, I had no money to go to college anyway, so it wasn’t even an option anyway.”