A Meeting In The Ladies' Room

by Anita Doreen Diggs

  This was a nightmare and I had no one to blame but myself. I had pulled out every trick in the book to gain Victor’s interest and he had let me know in every way possible that he was not interested. Now he had touched me and the experience was making him throw up. I pulled the covers up to my chin and just lay there with my eyes closed, not knowing what else to do.

  There was the sound of running water—he was rinsing the taste of my tongue and the vomit from his mouth.

  Tears stung the back of my eyelids and I’d never felt uglier or more worthless in my whole life.

  I sat up when Victor came out of the bathroom. “Are you all right?” I asked politely.

  He started putting his clothes on without looking me in the eye. “No. I’m not feeling well so it’s best if I go home.”

  Even though I had finally gotten Victor out of my system and only wanted him to leave, he was still a sick guest in my home and Mama had raised me right. “Do you want something to settle your stomach . . . Maalox, Alka Seltzer?”

  “Thanks, but no.”

  There was nothing left to say.

  23

  BLACK FINGERTIPS

  JACKIE HAD WIFE SINGING THE BLUES

  by Tiffany Nixon

  Once a mistress, always a mistress?

  Hank St. John and Jacqueline Blue met at City College on 135th Street. Sparks flew and soon the pretty college senior and her very married English professor were dating. It didn’t take long for Miss Blue to become dissatisfied with the stolen moments, clandestine meetings, and lonely holidays that have enraged mistresses since the beginning of time. Miss Blue began to demand more. Mr. St. John, afraid of losing her, complied.

  Eventually, Mrs. St. John got wind of the affair and confronted her husband. She demanded that he cease and desist or she would leave, taking their three children with her.

  Professor St. John went to Miss Blue’s apartment, which was located a few blocks from the campus, to deliver news which Ms. Blue did not want to hear: the relationship was over.

  Mrs. St. John says, “Jacqueline Blue began following me around, threatening to steal the children, and generally made my life hell until we moved to Long Island a year later.”

  According to my sources at Welburn Books, Ms. Blue, who is now a decade older, had a “very close” relationship with Annabelle Welburn’s husband.

  Did Jackie covet Craig?

  Keith demanded my side of the story. As I told him, I didn’t know that Hank was married until we had already started sleeping together. It is true that I should have ended our relationship as soon as I learned the truth, but by that time I was in love with him. When he came to see me, looking all sad, I knew what was going on before he told me. I gave him a kiss good-bye and disappeared from his life. I did not harass his wife, call his home, or threaten to take his children. Why would I, a twenty-two-year-old girl with no job lined up and only three weeks away from graduation, want to steal some kids that I had no way of feeding?

  Mama called. “What is this mess about you havin’ sex with some married man?”

  “It was a long time ago, Mama,” I answered wearily.

  “How could you do somethin’ like that? You was raised better.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Didn’t you care about his wife and kids?” Mama sounded angry and disappointed.

  “I was young, Mama.”

  “Don’t you give me that bullshit, Jacqueline Blue. Married is married, and you knew that. Sell it to the damned jury.”

  I figured Mama was putting me in the same whorish category as the woman who ran off with Daddy, and my spirits sank to a new low.

  She hung up before I could say another word and never mentioned it again.

  I was furious. Why was Tiffany Nixon digging around in my past? Would her own background stand up under such intense scrutiny?

  Two weeks later, a grand jury returned an indictment against me. As a result, my employment at Welburn Books was officially terminated, and I was thrown off the payroll. Alyssa was the only member of the Black Pack who called to sympathize but I was too upset to talk to her. It was a bitter pill for me to swallow.

  One evening, I was watching the six o’clock news when Keith called to say that there was a big problem we needed to talk about and he was coming over to my place.

  I was wearing a gray sweat suit, sneakers, and no makeup but I didn’t care. Paul had not answered any of my phone calls since the night of my disastrous encounter with Victor and other journalists had united with Tiffany Nixon in a thunderous cry for my blood. My life didn’t seem worth living and I was so depressed that it took me a while to even wonder why Keith was coming to Harlem instead of summoning me to his office.

  I’d had more than enough time to mull over the grimy details of Annabelle’s unfortunate demise. Stitching them all together, it was clear to me that the doorman, someone who lived in The Dakota, Craig, or Annabelle’s sister had committed the terrible act. I was still concerned about staying out of prison, but that wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to clear my name more than anything else and the only way that could happen was if the killer was caught, convicted, and thrown into jail.

  The three-family town house that I lived in faced a tree-lined street of brownstones, some of them valued at over two million dollars in this new Harlem, which was becoming more overpriced by the day. Restlessly, I turned off the television set and stood looking out my front window, peering at the elegant homes through the pouring rain and wondering if I’d ever have enough money to buy one.

  I was imagining myself as the wife of a handsome, well-to-do gentleman living blissfully in one of the buildings with our two beautiful children (a boy and a girl) when the buzzer rang.

  Keith shrugged out of his coat and folded it neatly over a chair. He was wearing a black suit, crisp burgundy shirt, and a black tie that had swirls of a maroon design in it. “Jackie, you need to sit down. I have bad news.”

  We sat down on the sofa.

  “I don’t really know how to tell you this,” he said.

  My apartment suddenly felt cold, even though the thermostat was turned way up.

  “Just tell me, Keith, and get it over with.”

  He put his arm around me and drew my face down on his chest. “The grand jury returned an indictment and a warrant has been issued for your arrest, Jackie. I promised that you would surrender quietly within the next two hours. I didn’t want Detective Gilchrist showing up here with reporters on his heels and dragging you out in handcuffs in front of your neighbors.”

  I couldn’t focus on Keith’s face. The living room was tilting slightly and the sofa seemed to be revolving at an impossible angle.

  “This is insane,” I yelled. “If you hadn’t kept my hands tied up like this, I could have done my own research and we’d have other suspects by now!”

  “Jackie, calm down.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down! I trusted you and now I’m going to jail!”

  “It doesn’t mean you’re going to be convicted of this murder. The state still has to prove its case but the district attorney is under a lot of pressure and felt he had to set a wheel in motion.”

  “Keith, I don’t give a fuck about all that right now. I have to spend tonight in police custody and it’s all your fault.”

  “Jackie, I couldn’t allow you to run all over town asking questions. You might have said or done something that would jeopardize this case when it finally gets to court. Worse, you might have panicked the killer and ended up in the morgue. Now, you’ve got to keep trusting me even when things look bad. Okay?”

  “Suppose you’re wrong? Suppose I end up in the penitentiary?”

  “The evidence against you is all circumstantial and I’ll make sure that we get a jury which understands the concept of reasonable doubt.”

  Circumstantial evidence. A jury. Reasonable doubt. Even after all that had happened, it still seemed unbelievable. “Mama,” I managed to gasp.

  “Call her, Jackie.
Don’t let her hear this on the news.”

  I dialed the number and as soon as Mama answered, I started crying so hard that Keith had to take the phone from me and tell her himself. “Mrs. Blue, please calm down . . . It’s just for two nights. Jackie can post bail on Monday and . . . How much? . . . I really don’t know.”

  How much, indeed. Evidently Keith had not given any thought to that question because his head suddenly slumped to his chest.

  My heart was thumping noisily enough to wake a long-dead corpse; I was panting for breath and had to force myself to inhale and puff the air out normally; my visual perception lessened to a maximum of two feet before me. I was trembling with fear, and my head felt like there was a steel vise clamped to the back of it. Suddenly, there was only one voice I wanted to hear.

  “I’ve got to get in touch with Paul.”

  The next time you’re in trouble, call Victor.

  Had he really meant those words? Was he angry that I had been too much of a coward to call after our fight?

  Keith waited patiently as I dialed the number. My hands were shaking and as soon as he answered, a wail came from somewhere deep in my soul.

  “Paul, they’re charging me with Annabelle’s murder!”

  “What?” It was a gasp.

  “Keith is here and he’s taking me to jail.”

  “Put him on the phone.”

  I passed the receiver to Keith and sobbed as my lawyer explained the situation. Before we left the apartment, Paul got back on the line and promised that he’d move heaven and earth to get me out as quickly as possible.

  There was a black, chauffeur-driven limousine parked right in front of my building. The driver jumped out with an umbrella to protect us from the thunderstorm and opened the back door. The partition was kept closed all the way downtown so that the driver couldn’t hear what was said.

  Keith patted my hand. “Everything is going to be all right. Is there anyone you want me to call for you?”

  “If you’ll just check in on my mother every few hours until I get back, that’ll be enough.”

  Keith cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, Jackie, but you really need to concentrate on raising that bail money.”

  “Paul said he will help me.”

  “What if he can’t? You need a Plan B.”

  I knew a lot of rich authors and agents but not well enough to hit them up for a couple of thousand dollars. “I can’t think of anyone else,” I whispered.

  “What about one of your girlfriends?”

  I didn’t have any girlfriends. Not a single one. Mama had preached to me so long and decisively about the folly of having females in your house and your business that I’d never really trusted members of my own sex.

  It wasn’t until after I moved out and Mama got lonely that she allowed herself a girlfriend, even though Elvira had lived across the hall from us for almost twenty years.

  “There is no one like that in my life,” I whispered.

  Keith sighed. “I spoke to the district attorney just before I picked you up. We both agreed that since this is Saturday night, it is a lot easier to get you in without the media getting wind of it.”

  I knew that Keith was just trying to keep me from having a nervous breakdown. He was wasting his time. It wasn’t the press that had me terrified. “Are they going to lock me in a cell?”

  The limousine turned up Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, headed for 125th Street.

  “Not exactly. It’s a holding pen. We’re skipping the whole precinct thing and taking you straight to Central Booking.”

  His tone suggested that I should be impressed with the enormous clout he wielded with the powers-that-be. Since I didn’t know what “the whole precinct thing” was and what indignities would have awaited me there, I was unmoved. I focused on “holding pen” and an image of a huge basketball court-type space surrounded by razor wire fixed itself in my mind and I started to hyperventilate. Keith grabbed me by the back of the neck, forcing my head down.

  “Put your head between your knees and take deep breaths,” he ordered.

  The interior of the plush vehicle was silent as I huffed and puffed loudly. Then I noticed the fully stocked bar. “Keith, I need a drink.”

  “No!” shouted Keith. “I don’t want liquor on your breath.”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Keith. I’m about to faint.” We went at it, bickering like an old married couple or a bunch of siblings as I breathed in and out between my sweatpant-clad thighs, with one hand reaching up wildly for a drink of anything alcoholic.

  I won and by the time we were headed down the West Side Highway, I had gulped two shot glasses of straight whiskey. Keith gave me some orange Tic-Tacs to cover the smell. When I had recovered enough to lie back against the expensive leather and stretch my legs out, Keith held my hand and spoke quietly.

  “Jackie, I need you to be brave. Do you hear me?”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “When we get downtown, you will be relieved of all your belongings, fingerprinted, photographed, and then taken to a holding area. I can’t come with you but when they bring you into the courtroom for arraignment on Monday morning, I’ll be right there waiting for you, understand?”

  “Monday! This is Saturday night! “Oh Keith, isn’t there a night court or something that could spring me before tomorrow morning?”

  He patted my knee. “I’m so sorry, Jackie. That doesn’t work in a murder case.”

  “What is an arraignment?”

  “An arraignment is the first appearance in court before a judge on a criminal charge. The charges against you will be read or you will be asked if you are aware of the charges against you, and you will be asked how you wish to plead.”

  The limousine sped through the dark, wet streets, and with each roll of the tires, I felt another crumbling of who I was and what I used to be.

  The car finally stopped in front of a fortress-like building. As Keith helped me out, I noticed that a lot of police cars were parked on the street. Detective Marcus Gilchrist stepped from the shadows. Keith pushed me in back of him and had a whispered discussion which I could not hear.

  I just stood in the rain. Part of me felt removed from the whole scene. Surely this was some other woman’s life I was watching on a movie screen—in some surrealistic plot created by Hollywood writers. It just didn’t make sense that a person could really get entangled in the criminal justice system on the most serious of all charges just by misplacing an appointment book and running across a lobby! Why, the whole thing was insane and getting crazier by the moment. It was time for me to leave this mess—yeah, that was it. All I had to do was hail a cab and go to Mama’s house. I must have turned to leave because there was a sudden pain in my arm.

  “Stop it,” Keith whispered in my ear through gritted teeth. “If you run, it’s all over. You’ll never get bail if you’re pegged as a flight risk.”

  “Ow,” was my reply. His hands had clamped down on me like a vise. “Let go of my arm.”

  “Shut up and don’t move.”

  He turned back around and continued his conversation with Gilchrist.

  At that moment I realized that I was a prisoner. This was no movie and no one in the stone building in front of me cared about the famous restaurants I was in the habit of going to, the fancy names and addresses on my Rolodex, how Mama was home crying her eyes out, the fact that my career was going up in smoke, or that I really didn’t commit the crime.

  Suddenly Detective Gilchrist pulled me away from Keith and the two of us were walking toward the entrance. I twisted my neck around to look for Keith. He was just standing there, making no attempt to shield himself from the rain that was pouring down on him.

  “Keep your head up, Jackie,” he shouted.

  I could tell by the tone of his voice that the expression on my face must have been suicidal. Gilchrist didn’t say a word as he held the door open and led me into his world.

  It was a great, big room with no wi
ndows, lots of cops, a few desks scattered about, several partitions, and a counter with a bored-looking officer behind it. As we approached the counter, I realized that there was one gigantic cell built into the left side of the room which held women and another on the right which held men.

  The law of Karma had to be working here, but what on earth had I ever done to deserve this? Was this payback for the $25 I’d lifted from Mama’s purse when I was in high school and then swore I knew nothing about the missing money? The abortion I’d had in freshman year? The married man I’d had an affair with ten years ago?

  An old Black man was holding on to the bars and screaming over and over again “I’m Smokey Robinson, goddammit. Get me Berry Gordy!”

  I felt Gilchrist nudging me forward, and then we were at the counter. Gilchrist handed some papers to the cop with one hand and held my arm with the other.

  The cop looked at me. “What is your name?”

  “Jacqueline Blue.”

  “Address?”

  “125 West 111th Street. Harlem.”

  “Age?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “Any previous arrests?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Place your personal belongings on the counter.”

  I put my Kate Spade tote bag on the space in front of him.

  He unzipped it and named each item out loud as he pulled it from the case and wrote it down on a form. “Keys . . . wallet . . . book . . . lipstick . . . pen . . . pink case.”

  He shook the “pink case” in my face. “What is in this case?”

  My voice was trembling. “It’s Fashion Fair Perfect Finish Foundation.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Ma . . . Makeup,” I stuttered.

  Gilchrist released my arm. “Ted, let me see the book.”

  So, the cop’s name was Ted.

  The “book” was my Filofax.

  Ted handed it over—Gilchrist leafed through its pages, grunting in satisfaction. “This is evidence. I’m gonna hang on to it.”