She was in love and she wanted Marquise to know it—she wanted the whole world to know it. She snickered as she thought of how her parents would react when they were introduced to Marquise. Her mother would probably clutch her pearls the moment she caught sight of that doo-rag thing that seemed permanently attached to Marquise’s head. Her father would turn red as a beet when Kai revealed that the love of her life toiled as a janitor in the very nursing home he had insisted she work. Ha! The embarrassment would serve her father right for forcing her to work in that hellhole. Her punishment, she supposed, for being half-black. Having Kai work in the County Nursing Home was a slap in the face and another carefully devised method of dispelling any notion that she was his natural daughter. For surely, her father, the prominent doctor and respected citizen he was perceived to be, would never dream of placing his natural daughter in such a horrid and thoroughly degrading situation.
After meeting Marquise, her parents would voice concern that the class distinction between she and Marquise was bound to cause future problems. She’d have to bite her tongue to keep from reminding her father that he was apparently unconcerned about the class distinction between himself and her black biological mother. Whom did they expect her to bring home? A doctor? Well, she’d tried to live up to their expectations, but Dr. Harding had rejected her. And fuck him, too! It was his loss—the stupid fuck. She didn’t need his money or prestige. She’d serve her penitence at the fucking nursing home and emerge independently wealthy in two years.
Kai grabbed her briefcase and dashed to her car; she couldn’t wait to get to work to see the new love of her life: Marquise. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he would respond when she shared with him her desire to get married. Kai wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if Marquise decided to break up the news to his little girlfriend that very day—right there on the job. Hopefully, the unfortunate girl would bow out gracefully, seek employment elsewhere, and never force Kai to lay eyes upon her again.
Humming a love song, she swung open the door of her car, then remembering that she hadn’t driven since Marquise borrowed it; she decided to check for damages. She gave the inside of the Benz a cursory glance, closed the door and inspected the outside of the car. There wasn’t a scratch. Oh, how she loved her man! Completely satisfied, she tossed her briefcase on the floor of the back seat and drove to work.
Still humming happily, Kai turned into the parking lot of the nursing home, pulled into the spot designated for her father and cheerfully exited the car. Walking fast, she quickly reached the entrance to the building, and then suddenly remembered she’d left her briefcase inside the car. Instead of cursing the injustice of having to trek all the way back to the parking lot, she giggled uncharacteristically and jokingly chided herself for being so forgetful. Ah, the wonder of sweet love!
She trotted to the car. When she retrieved the briefcase, she noticed something pink lying beneath the floor mat. She squinted at the object in bewilderment, picked it up and gawked. It was a tiny pink barrette shaped like a butterfly as she held it between her thumb and index fingers. A child’s barrette. Now, how could such a thing find its way into the back seat of her car?
Clarity hit her like a ton of bricks: Marquise’s daughter had been in her car! And that meant his so-called fiancée had been in her car as well.
As if her fingers had been scorched, Kai dropped the barrette.
That bastard had used her car to take his funky family for a cruise through the ghetto! She could just imagine the three of them behaving as if they were the First Family of the ’hood, grinning and waving at their fellow hood rats and claiming her beautiful vehicle as their own.
She hated having to pick up the revolting and vile barrette, but she needed it for evidence. Kai looked at the inanimate butterfly and grimaced as if she were holding a dead mouse or…feces. Frowning, she tossed it inside her blue Italian leather Fendi bag.
In a rage, she stomped up the walkway leading to the entrance of the building, and then stormed into the lobby. Preoccupied with thoughts of murder, she didn’t bother to respond to the receptionist’s cheery “good morning.” She marched to the elevator and stepped in front of a slow-wheeling male resident who was trying to maneuver himself inside the elevator before the doors could close in his face. As the resident continued struggling to scoot his wheelchair into the elevator, Kai stepped forward and pushed the button marked closed and rolled her eyes at the man as she watched the doors shut in his defeated face.
With mounting fury, she swept past the nurses’ station. Walking briskly down the corridor, Kai nearly collided with a nursing assistant who was coming out of a resident’s room. The coffee-colored woman wore her thick long hair pulled back in a ponytail. There was an abundance of curly hair at her temples. Though her looks were downplayed—no makeup, not even a touch of lip-gloss on her thin lips, she was quite pretty. She had large luminous dark eyes with silky long lashes. The young woman was curiously familiar.
“Excuse me,” said the nursing assistant.
Kai said nothing, but managed to look offended as her eyes quickly darted to the woman’s name badge: Terelle Chambers, Certified Nursing Assistant. She glanced at the woman’s legs. Terelle’s nursing uniform, a green top and paler green skirt, revealed thick, shapely legs that were covered with hair. Kai bristled. This woman was Marquise’s so-called fiancée! Furthermore, she still hadn’t shaved those awful hairy legs. Yuck! Kai glared at her in passing, but Terelle didn’t seem to notice as she resumed walking in the opposite direction of the corridor.
After hanging up her coat in her office, Kai paced back and forth vigorously as she debated whether she should call the Housekeeping Department and summon Marquise to her office. His girlfriend’s presence on the floor posed a problem, however. The fourth floor was apparently short of nursing staff and Terelle had been pulled from her own unit to Kai’s floor. Kai surmised that Terelle’s hovering presence would alarm Marquise and prevent him from speaking candidly.
Kai called his cell phone. Expecting to get his voice mail, she was prepared to leave a scathing message. Amazingly, Marquise picked up.
“I need to see you,” Kai said in a frosty tone.
“What’s wrong? You aiight?”
“No, I’m not all right.”
“Whassup?”
“Where are you? I need to speak to you face-to-face.”
“Home.”
“You’re at home! Why aren’t you here—at work?”
“Whatchu wanna know for? You interrogating me like you the cops or somebody,” he said, laughing.
Kai sighed in disgust.
“Damn, Mommy, where’s your sense of humor. Aiight, check this—I’m off probation at work, so it’s cool to call out sick. I’m home chillin’. You gotta problem wit dat, um…Detective Montgomery.” Marquise chuckled.
Marquise’s jolly mood heightened Kai’s anger. Desiring to slap the smile out of his voice, she asked in a calm tone, “Who was in my car Saturday?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Clearing his throat before he spoke, Marquise finally responded. “Wasn’t nobody in your car; just me.” He paused. “Oh, yeah…I forgot…my man, Jocko, was wit me Saturday. Don’t you remember? I told you we hung out for a minute.”
“Did this Jocko person bring his child along?”
“What?”
“You heard me…did Jocko bring his daughter along?”
A deafening silence followed Kai’s question.
“Marquise?”
“Yeah?”
“Say something.”
“I’m trying…but you’re fuckin’ wit’ my head. I’m tryin’ to figure out where you comin’ from.”
“Well, let me assist you in figuring this thing out. This morning—the very morning I planned to propose to you…” Kai paused, allowing the significance of her words to sink in.
“Propose?” he asked, sounding troubled.
“Yes, I was planning to bring up the subject.
I think we should get married.”
Marquise listened, but was dead silent.
“We’re good together and I can offer you a better lifestyle than you’re currently leading. As you’ve probably assumed, I’m wealthy. My paternal grandmother left me an inheritance that’s been put in a trust fund. I can’t touch that money until I’m twenty-five years old. I have to remain gainfully employed if I expect to collect the full amount, which is in the millions.” She heard Marquise gulp at the word millions. She chuckled as she imagined him sweating bullets wondering where this conversation was leading and how it could benefit him—the greedy bastard!
“I was recently rewarded a large sum from a lawsuit. I live off that money as well as the money my parents provide. My lifestyle, as you’ve gathered, is quite comfortable and will improve drastically. In two years, I’ll be a multimillionaire…Now, if there’s to be even a modicum of trust between us, I need to know who was in my car.”
“Slow your role, Shorty. I never said I was tryin’ to get married to you. I told you I’m already engaged.”
“Who was in my car, dammit?”
“My man,” Marquise said, his voice filled with defiance.
“Does your man wear pink barrettes?”
“Yo, whatchu tryin’ to say?”
“I found a pink barrette on the floor in my car. So I’m asking again…who the hell was in my car?”
The expected silence followed Kai’s question.
“Oh!” Marquise finally blurted. “My little cousin was in the car. I gave my little cousin a ride to the store just before I picked up Jocko. She must have lost one of her barrettes.”
“So you took it upon yourself to provide the entire ghetto community with a joyride at my expense?”
“Naw, it wasn’t like that. Why you comin’ at me like this? Tighten up, Kai.”
“You’re such a liar. You know what I think? I think you were running family errands in my car. I think the dire emergency you had to attend to had nothing to do with your grandmother. You’ve never mentioned a grandmother and I doubt if you even have one. You had the audacity to use my car to benefit your fucking family?”
“Yo, I don’t know whatchu talking ’bout but I’m gonna have to call you back. My battery’s dyin’.” Marquise abruptly hung up.
With her mouth wide open, Kai stared at the phone she held in her hand. How dare he hang up on her? She replaced the receiver, vowing to make Marquise’s life a living hell.
Kai promptly called Verizon Wireless and terminated Marquise’s account. Ha! She would give anything to see his expression when he tried to make calls on a dead cell phone.
Did he actually believe she’d invest her precious time and money into him and then allow him to go traipsing off to that hairy whore at home? Oh, hell no!
It was a good thing she’d taken that photo of him on Saturday night. After hours of hot sex, he’d collapsed into a deep sleep and Kai couldn’t resist snapping a nude shot of him as he slept like a baby.
And after rummaging through his pockets, she’d found his Pennsylvania State ID, which listed his current home address. Thank God she’d had the foresight to copy it. His address, printed on a small piece of paper, was tucked in a secret compartment inside her wallet.
Kai gave a wicked chortle and thought, Let the games begin, you bastard!
Chapter Forty-two
A few days after having the stroke, Gran had another and was now on a ventilator. With Gran out of commission, Aunt Bennie had brazenly stepped out of the closet. She brought her female lover to Gran’s hospital room. The woman’s name was Sheila. She was attractive with long reddish locks. Though she was taller than Aunt Bennie, Terelle surmised that Sheila was the woman in the relationship.
Aunt Bennie’s lesbian relationship was too much for Terelle to absorb; she thought she would pass the hell out when Aunt Bennie kissed Sheila on the lips right next to Gran’s bed. She didn’t want to be judgmental, but damn, anyway you looked at it—that shit just wasn’t cool! Couldn’t Aunt Bennie have at least prepared her for such a shocking revelation? Couldn’t she have pulled her to the side and confessed that she liked chicks before bringing Sheila to Gran’s room? It seemed like an inappropriate time to finally admit she was gay. Terelle would have appreciated a little time to marinate on the subject.
It was a wonder the spectacle of all that lesbian kissing and hugging didn’t cause Gran to snap right out of her coma. Terelle kept her eyes fixed on Gran because she expected her grandmother at any moment to rise up in a fury and start pulling out the trachea and all the other tubes and wires that kept her alive so she could cuss Aunt Bennie out. If Gran had caught sight of her daughter with her lips pressed against the mouth of another woman, she would have somehow gathered the strength from somewhere to give Aunt Bennie a beat down like no other.
But Gran had remained silent and still—she remained in a vegetative state and Terelle knew her grandmother wouldn’t be with them much longer. Aunt Bennie also knew, and apparently had accepted the fact, which is why she risked flaunting her lesbianism. Oh well…live and let live. That had always been Terelle’s motto.
A few hours later, Terelle left the hospital dealing with the sad realization that she had lost her own mother a long time ago and would soon lose her grandmother as well.
In that melancholy state, she’d stopped to pick up the mail from the mailbox in the vestibule of her apartment building. Standing out among the bills and junk mail was a large manila envelope addressed to Terelle Chambers, Nursing Assistant. Terelle’s pretty face crinkled in confusion.
Too curious to wait until she was inside her apartment, she’d ripped the envelope open as she climbed the flight of stairs.
She gaped at the nine and a half by twelve-inch photograph she pulled from the envelope. Turning it upside-down, she viewed it from different angles as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. She desperately needed her eyes to focus—to stop playing tricks on her. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again, but there was no denying what she saw. With a sinking feeling, she had to admit that what she held between trembling fingers was a photograph of Marquise. Naked. Lying on his back with his legs spread open—dick hanging to the side—in someone else’s bed! He was obviously sound asleep for in a waking state he would have never allowed himself to be photographed butt-ass naked.
Danita! The name exploded in Terelle’s mind. With rage building, she examined the photo closer and wondered how Danita could afford such a richly furnished bedroom. Project dwellers, she thought angrily, paid little to no rent and minimal utilities and apparently could afford to hook up their cribs with the best of everything.
Terelle grabbed the phone feeling so shaken, she kept pushing the wrong numbers as she tried to call Marquise on his cell.
With unsteady hands, she tried again—slowly and deliberately this time. But she got a recorded message—Marquise’s cell was no longer in service. Unbelievable! This was an emergency—a dire emergency—and his phone had been cut the fuck off! What the hell was going on? It seemed every aspect of the world she thought she knew was crumbling before her eyes.
She tried to calm down. Perhaps it was just a joke. Someone had sent her a photo of a Marquise look-alike. Heart pounding, she chanced another peek at the picture and winced. Without question, it was Marquise. Moreover, it was his unmistakable dick. For even in a limp state, his dick was thick, long, and slightly curved. She cried out in anguish and flung the photo across the room. Her head began to throb. She massaged her temples and walked back and forth whimpering and murmuring that Marquise was a no-good…slimy…dirty…whore…bastard. And she hated his fucking guts.
Terelle felt lightheaded. If she didn’t talk to Marquise soon she was going to go ballistic and start breaking up every damn thing in the apartment—starting with his shit.
She called his cell again. Listened to the recording again.
In a stooped position, she yanked open the doors to the cabinet under the kitchen
sink, rummaged around until she found a hammer. Then, with hammer in hand and walking like a zombie, she proceeded to the bedroom. Terelle gripped up Marquise’s precious Cartier watch, placed it on the nightstand and smashed it into smithereens.
The apartment was pitch black. Terelle sat in the dark and listened to Marquise’s hard footsteps as he climbed the steps that led to their apartment. Smirking, she waited with wicked anticipation while Marquise fiddled around with his keys, trying to locate the one that would open the door. She enjoyed hearing the rattle of the chain that prevented his entering the apartment.
“Terelle,” he yelled through the cracked open door. “Open the door—why you got the door locked up with the chain?” Annoyance coated his words.
She calmly walked to the door and slid the photo through the opening.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Take a good look,” she said tonelessly.
Marquise quietly studied the picture, then laughed. “You mad about this? Babe, this is a joke Jocko and his boys played on me. If you don’t believe me, you can call him right now…”
“Fuck you, Marquise. If that’s true, then this situation is worse than I thought. Because if Jocko took this picture then I have to accept that being in jail for two years has turned you into a fuckin’ faggot. So whatchu sayin’—you one of those homo thugs? Huh? You on the down low?” The venomous words came through lips that were twisted in rage. Marquise flinched, then quickly recovered, his eyes ablaze in self-righteous indignation.
Feeling safe behind the chained door, Terelle took pleasure in watching his mounting rage. He gnawed on his lip furiously, his mind raced, his eyes darted wildly as he tried to figure out a way to break through the door to wring Terelle’s neck.
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” he finally said. His voice was ice.
“Whatever. But check this shit out…you’re creating a disturbance. Keeta’s asleep and I was trying to get some sleep. So take your cheatin’, whorin’ ass back to the bitch or faggot you been fuckin’ around with.”
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