by Tameka Hicks
“I see the food is here.”
“No, I’m eating air,” she replied.
She laughed. “You are very humorous,” she leaned in to say, “But you’re still on the clock, and I will fire you for being sarcastic with me.”
“I clocked out for lunch sweetie so you can go straight to hell.” She leaned in closer and told her, “You are full of shit, Mrs. Graham. Who do you think you are, Misses Big Stuff? You liked me when I was just your worker, but when Michael and I got personal you started hating me.” She placed a piece of fish into her mouth. “Are you in love with your son?”
She choked. “Are you crazy,” she sniggered. “Question is, are you in love with my son?”
Mrs. Graham pinched off her bread, politely placing it into her mouth.
“Here’s the deal. I’ll pay you say, one hundred thousand dollars to quit the job and break up with Michael and never be seen with him again.”
She retrieved her checkbook from her purse and proceeded to write. “Do we have a deal?”
Tamara continued eating her food. “You’re food is going to get cold, and she went through all that trouble of making that good looking lemonade for you, the least thing that you could do is drink it.”
She killed the glass of ice-cold lemonade. “Do we have a deal?”
“I’ll tell you what-I’m going to have his baby with or without your permission. I was sick this morning, so I might be pregnant with Michael junior right now, as we speak. Did you know that we were planning on bringing a baby into this world soon?”
“He told me that.”
“Every man should have a child to carry on his name. Don’t you think so Mrs. Graham,” she asked with a smile.
“He doesn’t need a six dollar and hour, project bimbo to trap him into marriage.”
“Of course, he doesn’t, but I’m not a bimbo, and I didn’t come from the projects lady. I’m quite sure that he doesn’t need an overbearing, selfish, jealous, demented mother, who thinks she has the answer to everything, but she really doesn’t have a clue. You control his life with your money, and personally I think you’re going to lose him after he hears how you tried to bribe me with money.”
She laughed. “Do you think you’re the first person whom I’ve had to pay off for them to walk away from Michael?”
“Well, I’m not impressed by a hundred thousand dollars. Our love can’t be bought Mrs. Graham. You have kept us apart long enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not fully mine, because he’s trying to please you.”
“Name your price Tina,” she started to feel dizzy. “It’s getting hot in here,” she started to fan herself with the menu. “Whew.”
She whispered. “I quit, Mrs. Graham. I’m worth more than you could ever pay me. All this pain that you’ve caused me will come back and bite you on the ass ten times harder. I guarantee it.”
She laughed. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise Mrs. Graham. My grandmother always told me that GOD doesn’t like ugly, and right now you look like a hideous monster to me. I guess, I’ll see you in hell, huh?”
Mrs. Graham responded. “I suppose so.”
“I want you to keep my seat warm,” she replied. “Thank you for the lunch. I’ll get my things out of my locker later. Here are your keys to the office. Thank you for the opportunity Mrs. Graham and I’ll see you at the wedding,” she laughed as she walked towards the front door.
Was there any liquor in my lemonade? Mrs. Graham wondered. “Let me get home.”
Mrs. Graham staggered as she walked back to her car. Her keys fell into a puddle of muddy water. “Damn it!” She fished them out of the nasty water and opened the door. She locked the door using her elbow because she couldn’t hit the electric lock button. Her head started to spin faster, she was in no shape to drive, but she figured that she could make it. She had driven home intoxicated many times before. She was going to have whoever head was responsible for messing with her drink. She put the keys into the ignition and sped off while Barry White’s, “Can’t get enough of your love babe” played on the car stereo. She took a shortcut that knocked off ten minutes of travel time to get home from the restaurant. She was on Route 1B going seventy miles per hour. She bent around the curve, and as she went to put on her brakes, she discovered that they wouldn’t stop. She screamed for God, as she hysterically pumped her brakes turning the wheel to avoid crashing.
“Oh God, help me,” she prayed, covering her face.
She had no other choice but to swerve the car into the wall to avoid a head on collision with a vehicle that was headed in the opposite direction. The impact of the wall caused her vehicle to turn over on its side. Her head and chest struck the steering wheel several times. She felt a sharp, burning sensation in her chest. Blood started to ooze from the deep cut on her cheek.
“Oh God, I’m about to die,” she mumbled.
A truck driver witnessed the crash and radioed in a request for help at the scene. He tried to open up the passenger side door, but it was badly smashed.
“Ma’am, can you hear me! Help is on the way! Just hang on in there!”
From afar, she heard people talking near her car. She faintly heard a man’s voice yelling something about flipping the car back over.
“We can’t move her,” a woman’s voice frantically instructed.
She heard a different male’s voice this time, knocking on the window talking to her, but she was losing consciousness by the second. “Don’t close your eyes! Ma’am!”
She mumbled. “I can’t keep them open. I’m trying, someone please help!”
THE BIG PAYBACK
Tamara strolled into the crowded Texas Mercy Hospital disguised as a white man wearing a short blonde wig; blue contact lenses, and a cream colored uniform blending in with the rest of the crew. She strapped her breasts and bottom down using ace bandages. Vondell’s cousin (Kathy) worked at the hospital and Tamara convinced him to steal her badge for her. She’d worn fake buckteeth, and packed on foundation that made her look like a white person with sideburns and a moustache. Tamara had transformed herself into Thomas. The ladies behind the front desk looked up at the obvious new employee speaking to him carrying on with their business. He spoke back with his head down walking towards his first and last patient of the day; Mrs. Graham.
She swiped the card that gave her access through the metal double doors: INTENSIVE CARE UNIT the sign read. There was another station of busy nurses and a receptionist. The nurses looked up at him, but kept on talking. “Good morning,” one of the nurses bellowed out without looking away from her chart.
“Morning,” she said as masculine as she could.
The three nurses carried on a loud conversation with each other about the soap operas and the two receptionists at the end of the desk were on the telephone.
“I hate the smell of clinics and hospitals,” she thought to herself. She walked straight into her room without anyone paying any attention to her.
“There she is my inspiration.”
She brought the chair closer to the bed and equipment for easy access. Mrs. Graham lay there unresponsive. Tubes ran from every hole that was on her body. A large band-aid was across her forehead to cover up her hideous, deep scar from her contact with the windshield. She was hooked up to a life support machine and a heart monitor and all the cords made her look worse. She had an IV in the back of her hand and one in her left arm. Tamara checked around before she pulled out a needle that was filled with 20 cc’s of Nempholanago.
A drug that was used to restart the heart after failure but too much of it would be deadly, especially to a beating heart. It was also virtually untraceable if it was administered in small doses and injected directly into the heart. The way the drug worked was tricky but she’d spent the entire year researching the medication. She removed the sticky pads off her chest that monitored her heart and placed them onto her chest. She released the medicine into Mrs. Graham’s heart r
ecapping the empty syringe and placed it back into her pocket. She checked around to make sure that the coast was still clear, as she carefully replaced the pads back to where they had been before. The numbers on the heart monitor started decreasing slowly. Someone walked past the room talking loud. She rubbed Mrs. Graham’s hair whispering in her ear.
“You can’t stop me from doing what I want to do. You might’ve had money, but I’m smarter than you. I told you that it wasn’t over,” she chuckled.
“Didn’t I,” she kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll see you in hell Jackie Graham.”
She stormed out of the room towards the flight of stairs making her way to the ladies' restroom, to change her clothes and remove her disguise. She had stashed a bag of clothes inside a gift bag in the air vent in the restroom. She came out of the bathroom a woman, not Tamara but a white woman with red hair and freckles. She walked out of the hospital carrying the bag, crossed over two blocks, and hopped into the car with Vondell.
“Any change in her condition?”
She smiled. “Nope, but she’s resting like a baby.”
DIARY ENTRY PART 1 of 2
Dear Diary,
It’s been two months and three days since the funeral. Michael took his mother’s death a whole lot better than I had expected. When the accident first happened you could tell that he was hurting badly, but he figured that she was going to pull through. She was built of stone, but even stone can be crushed to pieces. I’m not judging him because people grieve differently; some cry around people as others cry to themselves. He told me that he was dealing with it the best way possible. A few times I had seen him crying as he looked through his photo book in that room where Tina hid that night. I hate to see people suffer, but it seems as though no one cares about my suffering, plus she asked for it. One day last week, I found a picture of a baby in his secret room underneath a lot of paper. I took the picture to him questioning him about it. He told me that the picture of the baby was his best friend, Vondell’s baby. One of these guys is lying to me because Vondell told me that he didn’t have any children and so did Michael. I asked him ‘why was this picture at the bottom of the box like it was placed there deliberately.’ He hasn’t had the chance to hang it up yet was his excuse. He switched the subject quickly to the baby because of guilt. As a matter of fact, I know he’s lying about the picture, but I’ll explain it later.
Michael wanted me to go to the hospital with him when they called and informed him that his mother had passed on. I couldn’t show my face in that hospital, I told him that I was getting sick. I had helped him with the burial arrangements, which was one of the hardest things that I had to do because I didn’t like her for one, I hate funeral homes second, and thirdly, I was responsible for her death. I didn’t want to go to the funeral, but that would’ve made me look too suspicious, so I bought me a black dress and went. I didn’t view her body because I kept on imagining her getting up from out of the casket chasing me. Michael sat in the back with me, and I managed to make a few tears come down for my money’s sake. Last night, I had to sneak Tina into the house again because he was feeling lonely, and he wanted sex, so I had laced his drinks, tying him up again, but this time he had a whole lot of drinks in him. He’s starting to drink a lot more since the death of his mother. It took some time, but everything was turned over to him, the businesses, her three homes, and the cars. I convinced him when the insurance guy came to the house to handle the necessary business to transfer the money into his account, to put me down as his beneficiary because I was going to be his wife soon. Why wait until it’s too late? I told him that I didn’t want to struggle with our baby, if something happened to him. I ran into the bathroom like I had to throw up. I had to rub that shit in thick to prove a point to him. He signed me as the beneficiary on everything. I’ve been away from home so much my babies don’t cry when I leave. Well, Caylyn never cried anyway, but Jaylyn did and now he waves and continues playing. I had Tina to quit her job because I needed her home with the kids while I took care of this business, plus she was really sick from being pregnant. Michael doesn’t ask me to have sex with him as much because I told him that during a previous pregnancy, I’d miscarried because I was having sex during the pregnancy, so we watched a lot of television. We always go see the latest movies at the theater and go out to dinner every night. I go with him to handle his business, so I can learn how to run my own business someday. I told Vondell that we should wait at least four months before executing the plan because that’s too soon, and I would’ve been the first person they suspected, so he agreed with me. I knew he would because I made the plan up from the beginning.
I’ve got four more months of this bullshit. I’m tired of thinking and plotting all this stuff. I’m exhausted from thinking of the plans, let alone carrying the stuff out. Talk to you later.
THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE…
The year is 1995, the 1st day of September and Tina and Michael relaxed on a beach in Honolulu, Hawaii for their last day of vacation. She’s starting to show a bulge, but little did he know that Tamara always had a belly, she just wore girdles to hide her big stomach. She slept and ate. She really didn’t enjoy the vacation except for when she’d made an excuse to slip away to meet Vondell in another hotel room.
She tried to talk him out of going, but he told her that he needed a vacation because his mother didn’t believe in taking breaks or vacations, so off to Hawaii they went. Michael, Vondell, Tamara and some girl Vondell brought along with him. Michael spent his time on the beach at the liquor stand checking out the women who he thought couldn’t compete with his beautiful wife. It was just as a much as a surprise to her as it was to Vondell. That’s why he was adamant about going to Hawaii. Vondell wasn’t happy about the situation, but he had to roll with the punches. Tamara told him not to worry about a thing that was better than being just a girlfriend.
They packed and headed back to Texas. On the fifth, class was starting for Tamara. Tina visited her physician last week, and had an ultrasound performed, and she’s having a baby girl and Michael’s excited about it. Tina (the real Tina) is pregnant by Michael, and she had an ultrasound done and it’s a girl. It took a few times, but she became pregnant after the second or third time. They have two different identifications cards making them have to go to two different dentists and clinics. They worked under their fake names but it’ll all be over soon and things could go back to normal. Tina officially found out last month that she was four months pregnant. She always wanted a baby after she miscarried because she had been raped. This was her baby-no matter how deceptive she had been to conceive her.
Today.
September 29th, it’s raining hard. The cold temperatures caused the rain to freeze making the entire city shut down their business because of the ice storm. “This state is so weak just because you get a little ice-you people freak out and shut everything down, in Detroit….”
He laughed. “Here we go again with Detroit.”
“That’s right, I rep my city where I come from. Anyway, we slip and slide down the fucking streets, but we take our asses to work and make that money. We can have snow up to our knees, shit, we can have snow up to our doors blocking us in and we'd shovel our asses out of the house, or get fired because our businesses aren’t closing for shit. Jesus could come down and say to the owners, “Shut down all the businesses. Rest for five days or get punished.” She said laughing, as she pushed him. “You think that they would? I could name a few businesses right off the top of my head that the owners would be defiant trying to make a dollar and would go to hell. I can hear them now saying, “Wait a minute Jesus! Just a few more hours Lord because I have to beat last year sales.”
He laughed. “I don’t think they would be that stupid. What company are you talking about?”
“My boyfriend worked at an oil change place some years back and the owner was money hungry like that.”
The phone ranged. He quickly answered it.
She cracked the
eggs into the bowl, but her attention was on his phone conversation.
He had this strange look on his face. “When? What?”
She heard Vondell’s voice on the other end of telephone. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but whatever they talked about had Michael eyes bucked. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She stood at the stove slowly scrambling the eggs. “What’s wrong Michael?”
“Vondell told me that somebody had broken into Graham’s Ketchup and had stolen the television out of the lobby with the coffee pots and had vandalized the machines and the inside of the building.”
She looked shocked. “You should call the police?”
“He already did. They’re on their way now.”
“What made him go check on the place, and everything is closed down?”
“Vondell doesn’t ever sit still. He’s from Chicago, so he’s used to the weather like you are. He said he drove past and seen some guys running out the building with the television.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
He kissed her on the forehead. “No baby, it’s too dangerous for me to be out here driving.”
“It’s ten thirty in the morning, why don’t you let him handle it. Isn’t that what you pay him for to handle minor things like this?”
He rushed upstairs to put on his clothes. “I should’ve followed my first mind and put on my clothes when I got out of the shower early,” he thought and said out loud to himself. He quickly gathered some clothes from the closet, quickly put them on and ran back downstairs. “I’ll be back shortly baby.”