The Perfect Ruin

by Shanora Williams

  Blinking my tears away was impossible at that point. I thought of my parents and the fear they probably felt as they realized their lives were in danger and, soon, coming to an end. I’d heard about the car hitting a tree. It was the same tree I used to climb when I was a little girl.

  My parents were cleaning out my grandma’s house that day. I remember, because they’d dropped me off at my friend Retta’s house to spend the day there while they went to clean it up and toss out old furniture.

  My grandma had passed away about eight months before that day and they were thinking about moving into the house, but also considering the responsibility of it. It was an old house—a small, ranch-style, vintage home with a big wooden porch, painted a pale yellow that Mama said would be the first thing to be changed on the outside of the house. The shutters were dark green, and I remember them needing a fresh coat of paint too.

  It was close to a lake where gators sometimes roamed, and I had to always be careful there. I could never go past the fence in the backyard. Grandma would scold me.

  My grandma didn’t have many neighbors close by. The closest was Mrs. Stevens, who was a little over half a mile away, and she was hard of hearing and much older.

  They went to that house often to make it a home for us. For me. There was a long street in front of the house that led to the freeway, but not many cars took that road because of the cavernous potholes. Across the street was this really big Southern live oak tree. The same tree my parents hit.

  The front of their car slammed right into the tree. They both went headfirst through the windshield, their bodies hanging out. I could picture all the blood, their mutilated faces. I always wondered why they didn’t pick up the phone—why Retta’s mom was so concerned about me that night.

  I lowered my head, my throat thick with unshed emotion.

  “Ivy, it was never my intention to hurt anyone. I was just trying to get to my doctor so I could get checked. I didn’t want to lose the baby because I had lost one already. It was with a guy I met before Corey, and it was the worst pain of my life. This was much, much worse, though,” she said, her voice thick. “Because of my recklessness, I killed two people, and because of the wreck, I lost the baby. There was no saving it. I suppose that was my punishment.”

  I stared at the wineglasses.

  “If—if you want, I can give you money. Just name your price and I’ll give it to you, but you have to promise to never say anything about this to anyone, and you have to agree to sign a confidentiality agreement.”

  I stood up and knocked over the wineglasses and the bottle of wine. The burgundy liquid leaked on the cement ground, pooling around Lola’s feet, and she frowned down at it before focusing on me.

  “Fuck you and your fucking money!” I snapped. “This is what you did with the detective too, right? Shoved your millions in his face? You’re such a fucking coward!”

  I stormed through the house and through the corridor to get to the front door. Fuck her, Marriott. She can rot in hell.

  As I stormed out, Georgia was coming from the driveway with brown paper bags of groceries in her arms. She seemed surprised to see me. I glared at her as I passed by, then snatched my car door open.

  “Wait—Ivy!” Lola called, but I refused to let her catch up to me. I started the car and left, tires screeching along the cobblestones of the driveway.

  So, this was the truth, Marriott. I knew it now. Lola had a miscarriage and it caused my parents’ death. Now I knew why the detective always used words like “accident” and “confidential.” I was right. She’d paid him to keep her name off the books.

  Could I completely blame her for her pain? No, but she still covered it up. If it hadn’t been for some unknown person telling you Lola’s name, I never would have known it was her at all.

  But . . . there were only two people who could have fed me Lola’s name. There was Corey, but if he’d known who I was from the start, he never would have slept with me, and considering how hooked on Lola he was, he wasn’t going to sabotage their marriage with this. It would have ruined him too.

  That only left one other person.

  The same person who’d informed Lola that I was relevant to her past, that I’d been snooping around in her office. Why else would Lola have dug for information about me? Georgia had facts about me. She had proof of some kind.

  But why in the hell would Georgia, Lola’s household manager, do something like that?

  PART THREE

  THE PERFECT RUIN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  GEORGIA

  By now you know the truth, Ivy. You know I’m the one who got in touch with your therapist and told her to give you Lola’s name. You’re a smart girl. I was sure you’d figure it out.

  Trust me, it wasn’t an easy choice. For starters, I didn’t trust you with that kind of information. I knew it could make or break me if you had the name. You were just a little girl. An angry, lonely, little girl. You’d made so many mistakes that it was almost sad to know you only made them because you grew up without parents.

  What was with that boyfriend of yours anyway? Xavier. A drug-dealing hothead who had been arrested three times for possession. What did you see in him anyway? I’ve always wanted to know. He was six years older than you and lived in a shitty apartment, and you called his place home. You became obsessed with the idea of him, until you realized he was a no-good man. Just as you did Dr. Maxwell.

  See, that was your problem. You obsessed and obsessed until you became bored with the ideas, the fantasies, and I didn’t know if I could use that to my advantage or for what needed to be done, but I decided to take that risk. Why? Because I saw something in you, Ivy. I saw potential. I saw fury, and I knew that fury would lead you to do things you never thought possible.

  All those years you spent wondering who killed your parents, and why the person was never named in news outlets, why Detective Shaw refused to tell you. Well, you found out, and you can thank me for that.

  * * *

  Before I take this any further with you, let me go back to Lola.

  I kept her secret in the depths of my heart, and you know what she did? She resented me for knowing the truth. I realized after a while that Lola wasn’t ever going to fire me. Firing me would have meant losing my confidentiality, and she didn’t want that.

  I knew too much, and with what I had on Lola, I could have tarnished her entire career. But I didn’t. I still cared about her—cared for her like a sister—but it wasn’t until later that I realized she didn’t see me the same way I saw her.

  Lola’s miscarriage and the fact that she killed your parents set something off inside her. I don’t know how to explain it, but she became bitter in a sense. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she was always the perfect friend for all her rich besties, and even that talkative bitch Keke, but when she was home alone, she was the complete opposite of perfect.

  No, in fact she was a fucking bitch. She requested her favorite drink every day, a raspberry gin cocktail with lime. It was always that, or wine. Either way, she’d have three or four glasses of whatever drink was available. She drank heavily, hoping it would mask her guilt and shame.

  Lola felt like she had some kind of power over me. My marriage was rocky, so I finally built up the courage to ask Lola if I could move out of the mansion and live with Dion. She flat out told me I couldn’t.

  “I need you in this house more than ever now, Georgia. I’m sure your husband will understand,” she said while reading an article in a popular magazine about herself.

  But Dion didn’t understand. He was fed up, and things became much worse at home when he lost his job weeks later. Fired and replaced. No longer the hot sous chef of Louie’s. He was struggling to find another job because he had no culinary degree. The head chef at Louie’s had given him the job as a spur-of-the-moment thing, as an opportunity, but apparently Dion was becoming stale and making too many mistakes in the kitchen. He blamed his mistakes on me not being there for him, his pr
oblems at home.

  That meant I had to work. I really, really had to work, and I couldn’t fight Lola about moving out. I couldn’t quit my job when we needed the money more than ever. I had to make my marriage right again.

  Dion hated knowing that I couldn’t quit. He hated my job because it was the reason I was never home. He hated that the only time I could come to him was after ten at night, when Lola and Corey no longer needed me or had evening plans.

  And don’t get me started on the sex. We hardly had sex anymore because I was so tired after working. Lola’s demands were catching up to me, and I swear, they were going to drive me crazy.

  Georgia, I thought I told you I wanted a vegan dish tonight?

  Georgia, you’re really starting to be the worst household manager I know! Don’t you realize that?

  Georgia, what the fuck is wrong with you?

  Lola asked me those questions often, but the very last was the one she asked when I dropped a dish in front of her. The dish shattered on the floor and I was really set off. It was my last straw for the day.

  What Lola didn’t know was that Dion wanted a divorce. It turned out he was cheating on me, and had been for going on five months. He’d found someone else—someone more available to him. Someone who could soothe him, and she made pretty great money too, so he could mooch off her.

  “What is going on with you?” Lola asked when she hung up the phone. She stared down at me with her judgmental hazel eyes.

  “I just . . . I think I need a small break today,” I whispered.

  “Well, take a break, and then get your shit together, G. I can’t deal with this right now. You’re supposed to be taking care of my house and causing me less stress, not feeding into it.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’ll clean this up.”

  Lola gave me a repulsed once-over and then shook her head and left the kitchen. I picked up the pieces of the broken dish and threw them away, then went upstairs to my room to take a shower. After that, I stared at the divorce papers, which were on my desk, trying to figure out how I’d gotten there.

  Only a year before, I was happy with Dion. We would lie in bed or on the sofa watching movies and munching popcorn and M&M’s. He’d cook special meals for me. He’d make me forget about my long days and nights at the mansion with foot rubs and stories from his childhood. I thought we’d be stronger than this—that we could be spending a few hours apart a day for our marriage. But that’s the thing about love, Ivy. Love is no good for you, and it can blind you.

  For the most part I did what needed to be done for Lola. But I wasn’t feeling any better doing it. I felt sicker, and the smell of the cleaner I used to wipe the counters suddenly made me want to vomit. The food I had to set on the table for Lola and her guests always smelled spoiled or rotten.

  Something was wrong with me, you see . . . and then it hit me what it could possibly be, and I drove to the nearest pharmacy, bought a pregnancy test, and took it home.

  And just like that, after peeing on a measly stick, I found out I was pregnant. It was Dion’s baby of course. I didn’t see this as a bad thing, though. I figured this would be my way back to him. I was pregnant with his child. He’d forget about his new girl toy, cancel the divorce, and be with me again to start our family. He’d forgive me for not being as present for him as I should have been.

  I thought that would work, Ivy, I really did. But it didn’t. The first question Dion asked when I called and told him the news was, “Are you quitting your job at the mansion?”

  To which I replied, “Why would I quit? You haven’t found a job yet and with a baby, we’ll need the money.”

  “You can find another job,” Dion snapped. “I’m sick of you working at that damn place.”

  “But, Dion, she pays me good. We need the money.”

  Dion sighed, clearly fed up. “You know what, G, talk to me when you can put me before that fucking job. If you’re so good at it, you can get another one with flexible hours. You know how many people would be glad to have a woman who worked for Lola Maxwell working for them? I’m sure many of them will let you negotiate your hours.” He groaned, sounding irritated. “That woman abuses your freedom, and you just let her. What the hell are you gonna do when you get bigger with the baby and can’t do shit around her house? You think she’s going to keep you? No. She’s going to toss your ass aside and find someone who is more committed. Someone who doesn’t want a damn baby.”

  And you know what? Dion was probably right. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. What would Lola have done if I told her I wanted to start a family? It was never stated in my contract that I couldn’t start a family while working for her. There was even a clause for maternity leave and everything, but would Lola live up to that? Would she be fair about it? There was no way she would just shove me aside like trash, not after all I knew and how hard I worked for her.

  Dion didn’t want a baby—at least not with me. That much was clear from the way he hung up on me. But I wanted it, so I decided to keep it, despite what he had to say. Lola wouldn’t release me or shove me aside. She had been pregnant herself, and even though it hadn’t lasted long, she’d understand.

  She had to . . . right?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Wrong.

  For someone who’d started up her own charity for pregnant women and single mothers, Lola didn’t understand my side of this one bit.

  I told Lola I was pregnant the same week I found out and mentioned that if I was slower around the house, that was why. I saw she didn’t want to flat-out get rid of me, so she hired some girl named Viola to step in and perform household manager duties whenever I felt too sick to.

  That didn’t last long, though. Viola sucked at her job, and seeing as I didn’t want to be replaced, I sucked up my pregnancy woes and was back on my A game.

  Lola had her charity up and running by this point. She left me notes telling me to prepare for an official dinner she’d be having. Some of the wealthiest people in Florida were coming to the dinner to celebrate the charity.

  Lola was no fool. Her charity wasn’t a real nonprofit organization. She pocketed most of the money that was donated, leaving just enough to pay her staff and to run events.

  She was full of shit, but I kept my opinions to myself. After all, I didn’t care so long as I was getting paid on time.

  Anyway, the day of her dinner party, something was wrong with me. I wasn’t feeling well and was a little queasy. I’d assumed I was having some first trimester sickness. There were many aromas floating through the house from Tonia and her cooking staff. Too many for my pregnant nose to keep up with.

  I was getting the house ready with the caterers and making sure the servers were ready for the night with their white gloves and serving trays.

  Lola wanted everything to be perfect. Many of the donors had never been to Lola’s home, so she had some new furniture and décor delivered. She wanted to show off her mansion, let everyone know she had it made.

  It was June of 2010. The party was going to be an indoor-outdoor mingle, with special cocktails on the menu. A bar would be set up by the pool, with a bartender to serve guests and get them drunk and happy, and dinner would be in the dining room inside.

  As I said, I wasn’t feeling well, and as day became night and stars cloaked the dark, lavender sky, I began to feel worse.

  Lola traveled through the house, acting as if she were a queen. Her sequined red dress hugged her body tight, accentuating her hips and breasts.

  She flirted with several of the male donors, ready for them to sign checks with her name on it. One thing I could say about Lola was that she was very committed. She had grace and charm when need be, and she knew how to talk a man into donating five hundred thousand dollars to support women in need as if she were a car salesman selling Ferraris to retired sixty-year-old men. It was that easy for her.

  I think a lot of the men assumed they’d get a peek under that flashy dress of hers, and Lola ran wit
h that. She led a lot of them on, making them believe they could have a piece of her if they donated to her charity.

  As I checked in with the chef to make sure dinner was close to being served, a wave of nausea hit me, and I ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I couldn’t make it to my room, so I headed for the guest bathroom—the one Lola had decorated herself. Lola had decorated several rooms: her bedroom, her office, her thinking room with the big chandelier that I’d watched be installed, and this particular bathroom.

  I puked my guts out in the toilet, hoping it would make me feel better. It didn’t. I sat on the commode for a while, holding my head, sweat building on my upper lip, trying to get myself together. I had to be perfect for this party—Lola needed me to be—and I tried, I really did, but then a pain came over me, one I’d never had before.