by J. D. Mason
“What about Lola?” Brown asked.
“What about her?” Tito asked. “Lola made her decision and it cost us. All of us. I don’t think we owe her nothing else.”
“You wrong for that,” Brown retorted. “She helped us. You. Me. At one time or another, Lola came through for us, even if it meant letting us slide on a month’s rent.”
“Yeah, Mr. Brown, but you have to admit, we sacrificed for her, too. I love Lola, but she held on to that place for herself. Not for us. And you know that’s true.”
Mr. Brown would defend Lola to his grave, and Ciara understood his loyalty to the woman, but they had all lost everything in that fire. Lola wasn’t the only one, and frankly, Ciara was tired of putting Lola’s needs above hers and Tito’s.
“We can make more money with a bigger place,” Ciara explained. “It’s going to cost more, but if we make more, then that’s what matters. We can do more in the new space. You need to stop sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself, Mr. Brown. Stop feeling sorry for Lola. Lola’s a fighter. She’ll be fine.”
* * *
The fire was unfortunate, but now it was only a matter of a few days before the insurance company finished their investigation and paid Lola for the loss of her property. She still owned the land, but he doubted she had any fight left in her now. Star Industries would make a meager offer, which Lola would accept, and then the city would green-light the project.
Brewer was in his backyard when the call finally came.
“It was unfortunate that you nearly killed a woman,” he said, forgoing a cordial greeting.
He’d been waiting all week to have this conversation, but they’d had to be careful not to draw attention to themselves. Burning that mall to the ground one was thing, but burning a woman alive, even if that woman was Lola Knight, had not been a part of the plan.
“So I guess you didn’t see that big-ass car of hers in the parking lot,” he said sarcastically. “Don’t give me that shit. If the car was there, then it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the woman was inside.”
He sighed irritably. “Whatever. I know. I know. It’s done. Finally. This shit was nauseating. It took too damn long, but at least it’s nearly over.”
He paced back and forth in front of the fire pit his wife had insisted on having when they landscaped the backyard last summer. He could count on one hand how many damn times they’d used the thing.
“The money’s coming,” he groaned. “I spoke to him this morning. It’s on its way,” he said, getting more agitated. “Just don’t be stupid with it. You go around flashing that kind of money all of a sudden, people are going to get suspicious. And don’t ever mention my name and your name in the same breath,” he threatened.
People could be smart until they weren’t.
“No new cars. No new house. Hell, don’t even buy a loaf of bread with it until this whole thing blows over. That’s my suggestion.”
“Randall? Come inside, honey,” his wife called to him. “It’s late.”
“You’ll get your money next week,” Brewer told the person on the other end of the phone. “No,” he said sternly. “Don’t call me back. I’ll send you your money.” He raked his hand over his head. “Just know you’ll get it. Keep your eye on your mailbox.”
He hung up, took a deep breath, and shook his head. This was about more than just tax revenue and convenience to the community. Randall had a personal stake in this effort. Lance Whitman had offered him an “incentive” for getting this store built and incentives were always welcomed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Someone did set the fire on purpose,” Lola said, staring back and forth between the insurance representative and the fire chief, Ray Wilson.
“Evidence of an accelerant was found at the scene, Ms. Knight,” Ray explained. “The fire started in one of the empty units, and spread quickly.”
“So, what does that mean?” She looked desperately at the insurance representative.
“It means that we can’t pay on the claim, Ms. Knight,” he said unemotionally. “I’m sorry.”
Lola’s heart felt like it had fallen out of her chest. “No,” she said as he stood up to leave. “No, you— you can’t do that. You have to pay my claim.”
The man coolly nodded and hurried out the door with Ray Wilson’s sheepish ass hot on his heels. “Sorry, Lola.”
Lola stood numbly in her living room, watching Ray close the door behind him with that insurance man taking off with Lola’s last hope at a fresh start, even a feeble one.
“This didn’t just happen,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head. “This did not just happen.”
Lola had been tucked away in that house all week, waiting, recovering her body, her mind and spirit, preparing for the next round of her life. She’d been looking forward to this meeting, even planned on celebrating after it was over with dinner at Belle’s, maybe with Omar, and an enthusiastic speech about how excited she was to start the next chapter in her life, and how she was going to make Lola’s Life Boutique bigger and better than ever. But now … now, she had nothing, no way to start up again. She had no plan B. She’d never had a plan B.
* * *
Lucas Brown couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. He thought for sure that Lola would’ve received an insurance settlement of some kind for the loss of that mall, but to hear that she was getting nothing was too unbelievable for words. He’d called her again, and this time, she’d answered, and from the sound in her voice, he knew that he had to go over to her place.
“Ain’t there anything they can do, Lola?” Mr. Brown asked, his heart filled with empathy for this woman.
Those kids were nothing but selfish and ungrateful, but then he wasn’t surprised. Ciara had always been two-faced when it came to Lola, smiling and acting like she was her friend, and then talking about her behind her back to anyone who’d listen. Tito was just a puppet. He liked to go around bragging about “his business” but in reality, Ciara is the one who’d kept that so-called business of theirs going. Tito just had his name on the sign over the door and introduced acts when they had the open mic night.
Lola had no fight left in her. For the first time since he’d known her, she was defeated and had nothing in her.
“Somebody burned it to the ground on purpose, Mr. Brown,” she said sadly.
He’d never seen her cry before, but Lola was crying now and he felt absolutely helpless to do anything to console her.
“I was in that building.” She shook her head. “Does that mean that they wanted me dead?”
A thick lump swelled in his throat. “Now, I doubt that, Lola. Who’d want that?”
“All this for a superstore?” she said in disbelief. “Was it really that serious?” Lola grimaced. “People kill for shit like this? They destroy lives for it?”
“You think it was those Star Industries people?”
She shrugged. “Who else? I mean, they wanted that space bad enough to offer me way too much money for it, and maybe when I didn’t take their offer, they decided to take matters into their own hands and—”
“That’s serious, Lola,” he said earnestly. “You going to the police?”
She stared strangely at him. “That’s exactly what I need to do,” she said, almost as if she hadn’t thought about it until he’d said something.
“Be careful, Lola,” he warned. “You need to be careful about accusing a big corporation of doing something like that. They could sue you.”
She laughed bitterly. “For what? I got nothing, Mr. Brown. And who else would have anything to gain from that fire? It was them,” she said, filling up with that fiery personality of hers again. “I know it was. It couldn’t have been anybody else,” she said excitedly. “Of course it was them. Who else would do some shit like that?”
Lola locked her eyes on him as if he had another answer. Brown didn’t feel good about this. She was in no position to make that kind of accusation against a whole corporation.
<
br /> “You think the police are going to believe you, Lola?” he asked, trying not to sound like he didn’t want her to go through with this.
“They can believe me or they don’t have to, but they can investigate. That’s their job. If I file a complaint, they have to at least look into it. Right?”
“What if they don’t?”
She stared at him strangely. “What’s wrong, Brown? Why don’t you want me to do this?”
“What good is going to come of it? So you file a complaint and they look into it, if they look into it. Ain’t nobody on your side, Lola,” he finally came out and said it. “Everybody wants this. They always have, and I don’t think the police are going to do a damn thing. I don’t think they care.”
She looked wounded all over again, and he felt bad, but it was the truth. Lola had been doing all this fighting for a community that didn’t want her. He’d heard the grumblings of folks all around town, complaining and talking about, “Why don’t she just sell that old run-down mall?”
Of course she didn’t pay attention to the complaining because Lola wanted what Lola wanted, to hell with anybody else and what they wanted.
She looked like she was listening to him for the first time since he’d known her. “You really believe that? You don’t think they care?”
Lola needed to hear the truth. “Nobody cares, Lola,” he said sadly. “They haven’t cared in a long time. The same people you say you want to serve don’t want you there. They want the superstore. They always did.”
* * *
Afternoon faded into evening, and Lola had been sitting on that couch long after Mr. Brown had left. He’d never said anything like that to her before, but maybe he knew that even if he’d tried, Lola wouldn’t have listened. She had a big ego, too big, sometimes, and she had a hard head. When she set her mind on something, Lola closed it completely to anyone or anything that tried to convince her that she needed to do anything else besides what she wanted to do.
The signs were there. She should’ve taken the hint when sales started to fall. Lola should’ve paid attention when she showed up at the last city council meeting to argue her case and no one stood up to support her. She’d begged Mr. Brown and the others not to leave her, but she hadn’t given any thought to how keeping them there impacted their businesses. They’d suffered because of her and they’d paid a hefty price for their loyalty. She had nothing to give them now. Not a damn thing, and her heart broke more for them than for herself. She got what she deserved. They didn’t.
She told Mr. Brown not to tell the others that she didn’t get a settlement. Lola would pull up her big-girl panties and tell them herself, personally. She owed them that, and she owed them an apology. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
This wasn’t a day for celebrating. Cleanup crews had come through and cleared the location of what was left of Lola’s strip mall, and three bulldozers had replaced it, ready to tear up the concrete and open up the space for the foundation of Blink, Texas’s, mega-mart. Everyone was here at the groundbreaking ceremony—Mayor Brewer, representatives from Star Industries, members of the city council, and of course the press.
Brewer dug all this pomp and circumstance, and took full advantage of this opportunity to be the center of attention, standing at ground zero with a shovel wrapped with a big, yellow bow. Wearing a hard hat, he posed like a fashion model, grinning, and shaking hands with everybody, and even cracking a few lame-ass jokes, but nothing could compete with all that chest puffing he did gloating over the fact that this “glorious day has finally come.”
“I almost feel like I’m crashing the mayor’s own private victory party.” Lance Whitman sidled up next to Omar, who shook his head in dismay watching the mayor, too. “Do you think the man could be any happier?” Lance muttered under his breath.
“If he were any happier he’d be a Disney ride,” Omar said, sarcastically.
Whitman smiled. “Shame it had to happen like this. Is Ms. Knight all right? I’d heard she’d been inside when the fire started.”
Omar doubted seriously if the man cared if Lola was alive. Whitman was the slick type, oily and insincere. “She’s fine.”
“I heard it was arson. Is that right?”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“That’s terrible.”
Standing next to this guy trying to hold a conversation with him was nauseating. For all Omar knew, Lance Whitman had personally poured gasoline on that place and lit the match. The sonofabitch was that kind of sleazy. But then again, watching Brewer dancing a jig with that shovel, Omar knew Brewer could’ve just as easily have had something to do with setting that fire.
“This store is going to change this small town in big ways, Mr. Reid,” Whitman said admiringly. “At least something good can come from this tragedy.” He patted Omar on the shoulder and walked away.
* * *
Omar had finally coaxed Lola out of the house and talked her into having dinner with him at Belle’s.
“I think you’d be impressed with me,” she said, gloating, which was a good sign that she was starting to emotionally recover from all this.
“Why is that?”
“I have an official résumé now. I’ll be looking for a job soon.”
She tried to look and sound optimistic but that glimmer of disappointment that flashed in her eyes didn’t get past him. Still, now was not the time to thwart any enthusiasm she was trying to build.
“Good. Get me some copies. I’ll pass them around at parties.”
She smiled. “I don’t think I’d appreciate you using my résumé as a party favor, Mr. Reid.”
“Just let me know how I can help.”
“I appreciate that.”
She appreciated it? “Wow. You didn’t shoot down my offer for help? I think we’re making progress.”
“I’ve learned my lesson,” she said, sounding melancholy. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Pride cometh before the fall. All that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being proud, Lola.”
“There is when it gets in the way of common sense. You warned me and I didn’t listen.” She shrugged. “I didn’t listen because of pride, not because you were wrong.”
Something was happening here. A good thing. Omar was starting to get his hopes up when Tito walked past the two of them.
“There’s Tito.” She waved. “Tito! I haven’t seen him since before the fire.”
He came over to the table, and Lola stood up and hugged him. “How are you?”
He shifted his weight back and forth nervously. “Good, Lola. How you doing?”
“Oh, I’m all right I guess. I tried calling you. How come you didn’t call me back?”
He shrugged. “Been busy. That’s all.”
“You know Omar? Omar Reid with the city?”
Omar stood up to shake the young man’s hand.
“Yeah. I remember you. You read a Baraka poem on open mic.”
“I must’ve been terrible at it if you remember me. The place was pretty full that night,” Omar said, teasing.
“Ciara said that you were trying to find another place,” Lola asked. “Any luck?”
Tito got a little shifty eyed. Lola didn’t seem to notice, but Omar did.
“Nah. We’re still looking,” he said, avoiding eye contact with her.
“Sorry I couldn’t help,” she said. “I wanted to. I intended to.”
“It’s all good, Lola.” Tito obviously wanted to cut this conversation short. “I got to go. It was good seeing you.”
“You too.” She smiled. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t. Nice seeing you man,” he said with a nod to Omar.
Omar was a logic-and-numbers man, but every now and then, intuition reared up and kicked him in his gut, and this was one of those times.
At around nine, the music started filling the room at Belle’s. Nothing loud and brash on a Tuesday night. Bless th
is place. The first song to come on was the Isley Brothers’ “For the Love of You.”
Without hesitating, Omar stood up and held out his hand. “C’mon.”
And, also without hesitating, Lola took hold of his hand and followed him onto the dance floor. He wrapped one arm around her waist, pulled her close, and held her other hand close to his chest. Dancing was never his thing, but it would be his thing tonight. Lola relaxed against him and rested her head against his cheek.
“You’ve been a good friend, Omar,” she murmured sincerely. “Thank you.” Lola kissed him softly on the lips. “Thank you.”
By the time they’d finished dancing, Omar had already made up his mind to find out who’d burned down her place and to make them pay dearly for it. Lola was putting on the bravest face she could, but her heart was broken, her spirit was broken, and that was simply unacceptable.
After the dance, he left money on the table for the bill, and then took her home and walked her up to her door.
“As usual, I had great time.” She smiled.
Omar leaned in and kissed her again. If she’d asked him to come inside, he certainly would have.
She seemed to read his mind. “I want to,” she said softly. “At least, I think I do.”
“I’d like it if you did.” He grinned.
Lola laughed. “It’s been a long time for me,” she confessed. “I’ve been so busy trying to run a business that I’ve pretty much let go of any notion of having a personal life.”
He sighed. “Well, it’s not hard. I mean, I don’t mind showing you how to have one.”
“I’d probably be terrible.”
“At … what, exactly?” he probed.
“I’m not talking about that.” She laughed again. “That’s like riding a bicycle. Right? Once you learn, you never forget.”
He was at a loss for words for what seemed like a long time. He only wanted her to know one thing. “You are a beautiful woman, Lola Knight.”
Lola put her key in the door and pushed it open, walked inside, stopped, and turned to him. “Now how in the world do you expect for me to resist a man like you after making a statement like that?”