Disgusted, Esther slammed the door and closed her ears to Kitt’s pitiful cries. She’d had high hopes for Kitt. She was a slim, long-legged, pretty young girl whose insatiable appetite for sex bordered on nymphomania. The fact that she was twenty-one was Kitt’s biggest asset—old men in particular and young men, too, lined up for her, especially Andrew Peebles, the twenty-five year-old wanna-be rap singer turned producer. He couldn’t get enough of Kitt. If Esther had known that he had not been using a condom, she would have gotten on his ass right away. She certainly had an earful for him when she saw him again.
Esther took the back stairs down to the kitchen on the parlor floor where she was certain that she’d find Big Walt. Big Walt sat at the large kitchen table in the center of the huge room chowing down on a large piece of fried chicken and a plate of macaroni and cheese which Melvina made especially for him. At the stove, Melvina stirred a large pot. Arnell suddenly came through the same door behind Esther.
“Hey, Arnell,” Big Walt said, surprised to see her. “I didn’t know you were here.”
Arnell continued on through the kitchen but she waved halfheartedly at Big Walt. He had always been cool with her.
“Are you all right, Arnell? Need me for anything?”
“She’s fine, Big Walt,” Esther said. “Aren’t you, sweetie?”
Ignoring Esther, Arnell turned back to Big Walt. “What’s up?”
“I have that CD I mixed for you. I’ll get it for you.” Big Walt started to get up.
“I’ll get it later,” Arnell said. She went quickly to the back door.
“Sweetie, you leaving now?” Esther asked. “Can we talk a minute?”
Arnell didn’t answer Esther as she went out the back door.
Esther rushed to the open door. “Arnell, can I speak to you a minute?”
Stopping at the top of the short stairs that led down into the backyard, Arnell looked yearningly at her car. She wanted so badly to run to it, to drive it so far away that she wouldn’t know herself where she was.
“Sweetie,” Esther said, speaking in a low voice, “I thought about what happened to you tonight.”
Arnell looked longingly at her car.
“I just want you to know that Tony and I will take care of it.”
That got Arnell’s attention. “I don’t know exactly what that means, and, really, I don’t care. Just leave me alone about it.”
“Arnell—”
“Mother, I have to go.” She started to leave.
“Arnell, I’m in a jam. Kitt’s pregnant.”
“No.”
“Oh, I’m not asking you to replace her, but I do need you to help me find and screen her replacement.”
Arnell said quietly, “I can’t help you.”
Realizing that the door was open behind her, Esther glanced back inside the kitchen. Both Big Walt and Melvina were looking at her. Esther pulled the door in.
A car cruised to a stop in the driveway. Arnell continued on down the stairs.
“Arnell, I have a schedule to maintain,” Esther said, stopping Arnell again. “If I don’t get someone in here and trained right away to take care of Kitt’s clients, I might lose them.”
“That’s not my problem,” Arnell said, watching Jeanette get out of her car. “Speak to Jeanette. She thinks more like you than I do. I’m sure you two will come up with a solution.”
“You’re my daughter, Arnell. You—”
“I have to go,” Arnell said, passing Jeanette without giving her the time of day.
“Hi, Arnell,” Jeanette said, the gaiety in her voice quite unlike the deadpan look on her face. She went straightaway up the stairs to Esther. “She have a bad night?”
“Leave Arnell alone. What time is your next client?”
“Twelve-thirty.”
“Good. I need you to do something for me,” Esther said, going back into the house.
“Name it.”
“Big Walt, go up to Kitt’s room and give her a helping hand. I want her out of here in twenty-five minutes flat. Take her to that motel over on Pennsylvania Avenue in Canarsie. I’ll give you enough to pay for two weeks. After that, she’s on her own.”
Big Walt pushed his half-eaten plate of food away. There would be a fresh plate of food waiting for him when he got back. He was a big man. Six foot four, two hundred and sixty pounds of hard, rippling muscles that he fine-tuned in the gym two hours a day, five days a week. His arms were as big as most men’s thighs. His sheer bulk alone stopped many would-be incidents in the mansion the minute he appeared. His job was easy and he got paid well for it and that’s all that mattered. He needed lots of money to finish producing his first rap artist. He figured another year ought to do it and he could say good-bye to being Esther’s flunky. Right now, he had a job to do.
“What did Kitt do?” Jeanette asked eagerly. “Which rule did she break?”
Melvina turned away from her pot and waited for Esther to answer.
“Melvina, please fix me a chicken salad,” Esther said. “I haven’t eaten all evening.”
“Right away. Do you want it in your room?”
“No,” she said, sitting. “I’ll eat it here. Jeanette, I want you to take Kitt’s eleven-thirty appointment. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Okay, Queen Esther. Anything for you.”
“Good girl. Now you go on and get ready, I have to brainstorm with Melvina on replacing Kitt.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jeanette said, about to leave when she had a brainstorm of her own. “Queen Esther, maybe I can help. I met a girl tonight at the club. I think you might like her. She’s a hot young thing ready to leave home and everything.”
Esther’s curiosity was instantly piqued. “Tell me more.”
Ten
Arnell considered calling Sharise but dismissed the thought as quickly as it came into her head. The minute Sharise heard her voice she would know something was wrong and that that something more than likely involved Esther and the mansion. Sharise would not want to hear that Arnell had gone back and had gotten raped to boot, especially after spending long, emotionally upsetting hours holding her hand, listening to her gripe about the life she wanted to escape from just as Sharise had done. This time, Sharise might not lend a sympathetic ear. Sharise had implored Arnell to get as far away from Esther as she could. The problem was, Esther was first and foremost Arnell’s mother and it wasn’t as easy to escape a mother as it was to escape a boss—as it had been in Sharise’s case. Sharise had never agreed with Arnell’s reasoning.
Sharise had been living on the streets since she was seventeen. At nineteen, Esther cleaned Sharise up and took her in. For a while, Sharise was fine with living and working at the mansion, but after a bad night with an old geezer who had downed Viagra and screwed her raw, Sharise realized that prostituting her body was not something she wanted to do the rest of her life. When she announced she was quitting, Esther had a fit, but she couldn’t make Sharise stay. Sharise left the business five years ago, when she was twenty-six, while she was still young and pretty enough to catch the eye of the right man. That man was Michael Simon. He knew all about Sharise’s past life at the mansion; Sharise had told him about it herself. Michael had blinked, but he didn’t stop loving her. That’s how much he cared. They had two adorable children and a life in Baldwin, Long Island, that Arnell had only dreamed about.
As much as she needed to talk to Sharise, Arnell didn’t have the courage to call her. As always, Arnell was on her own and consoling herself was something she was use to. She headed home because that’s where she needed to be to lick her wounds and talk herself into doing what she needed to do to straighten out her life. Forty minutes later, halfway into her block, Arnell could see James sitting, under the light, on her front steps waiting for her. She wasn’t ready to see him, she felt too dirty. She stopped her car in the shadows of the trees that lined her street three doors away from her house. She parked and shut off the lights. She had never given James the keys to her ho
use; Esther had strongly advised against that. No man should have a key to a woman’s home until he’s paying the bills, and even then, only if he lives there. Some of Esther’s teachings were well ingrained in Arnell’s psyche. James wasn’t paying Arnell’s bills, and neither was he living with her. She hadn’t asked him on either account and he hadn’t offered. It was just as well, she didn’t want James to take care of her, she could take care of herself. She had stayed on track in going for her degree even while Esther tried everything in her vast storehouse of manipulative mind games to dissuade her. Arnell stayed the course, determined to prepare herself for a life outside of The Honey Well.
But to be fair, The Honey Well had given Arnell her one true friend in life—she had met Sharise there, and she had managed to save over two hundred thousand dollars in cash over the years from selling her body. She would have had more if she had not paid off her house and paid cash for her tuition. But that was all right, she was debt-free and well invested in stocks and mutual funds. She liked living that way. Of course, she could never let James know how much money she had—a man should never know a woman’s worth, à la Mommy Dearest. That made sense to Arnell, especially since the money was ill gained. James accepted her lie that her father, who she didn’t even remember, had died in a horrible car accident and that she and her mother had received compensation from a life insurance policy, an auto insurance policy, and from her father’s employee benefits package. Her part-time job from home as a copy editor would have never justified her lifestyle. So many lies, so much to fear.
Arnell took out her cell phone and realized at once that it was turned off. Turning it on, she ignored the flashing signal that she had voice mail. In the darkness, she knew by heart which buttons to press to call James.
“James, hi,” she said to his answering machine. “I’m sitting in my car outside your apartment. Where are you? It’s twelve-thirty. I’ll wait a little while longer and then I’ll head home. Call me later.” She shut off her phone. It disturbed Arnell that she could lie so easily, but the truth was, she had been living a lie as far back as she remembered. It’s all she really knew. This, too, like everything else she was forced to do or be was Esther’s fault.
Checking his watch for the time, James stood. He stretched. He looked first one way up the block and then the other. Arnell sank ever so slightly in her seat even though she was sure James couldn’t see her in the darkness. She hated standing him up, but she couldn’t be with him tonight. More than likely, he would want to make love. She just couldn’t. As painful as it was to admit to herself, Arnell didn’t feel worthy of James’s touch or of his love. In fact, she wasn’t worthy of becoming his wife. He deserved better.
Arnell watched James make a call on his cell phone. He appeared to be listening. He ended that call and made another. He seemed to be waiting. He spoke briefly before he snapped his cell phone closed. She could tell by the way he snapped the phone shut and shoved it back inside it’s belt holder that he was angry. Probably at her. He took long strides to his car sitting in her driveway and yanked the door open. Sadly, she watched him hurriedly back out and turn his car in her direction. Again, sure that he couldn’t see her, she didn’t move as he sped past, headed she didn’t know where. James’s time was valuable and what he hated worst of all was wasting a minute of it. Maybe this was as good a time as any to end the engagement. It could never work between them. Her past would never allow it.
Arnell didn’t bother to turn on her headlights as she slowly pulled out and drove right up into her own driveway. Using her automatic garage opener, she opened the garage door and drove inside. If James came back, she didn’t want him to see that she was home. She didn’t want to see him until Sunday at dinner with Esther and Tony. She couldn’t wait to see the sick look on Esther’s face when she broke the engagement to James. Esther’s hold over her would no longer carry weight. If that look was the only satisfaction Arnell got, it would be well worth it.
Eleven
The door started opening even before Trena’s key touched the keyhole.
Oh, shit. My ass is grass. She had a light buzz on from drinking three strawberry wine coolers and smoking half a joint, but her mind was clear enough to know that it was three o’clock in the morning.
In the doorway, Maxine stood with one hand on her hip. “Do you know what time it is, Trena? Where have you been?”
None of your business. Playing it cool, her head down, Trena tried to slip into the house past her mother.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Maxine blocked Trena from entering the house with her body.
Trena quickly made up her mind, she was going to stay cool. She wasn’t about to blow her high behind a war of words.
Maxine stepped back and looked Trena over. “Trena Marie Gatlind, where do you get off dressing like this? Where did you get that short behind skirt? I didn’t buy that for you.”
“Mom, I dress like all the girls dress.” Trena went around Maxine on into the house. “It’s no big deal.”
Closing the door, Maxine skimmed Trena, head to toe. “Trena, I can damn near see your tail.”
So. Don’t look.
“Child, if you bend over too far, your tail will drop out and your breasts will pop out.”
Good. What the hell I got them for if I can’t show them.
“Trena, where do you get off going outside this house dressed like that?”
Trena sucked her teeth. I’ll dress any way I damn well please.
Near the top of the stairs, Cheryl stood in her nightgown. “She looks like a whore.”
Poof! Trena’s high was gone. “Screw you, Cheryl!”
Maxine slapped Trena on the upper arm. “Trena! Watch your mouth!”
“What you hittin’ on me for? You didn’t say nothin’ to Cheryl. She called me a hoe.”
“I said you look like one.”
“You wish you could look this good.”
“I look better.”
“Your sister’s right,” Maxine said. “Trena, you look cheap. You get your fresh behind up those stairs and take those trashy clothes off. I don’t want to ever see you looking like this again.”
“Mom, Alyson and Bebe’s mothers don’t say nothin’ about the way they dress. There’s nothing wrong with the way we dress.”
“If your friends’ mothers want their daughters to look like tramps, that’s on them. I’m your mother and I refuse to let you disrespect me by the way you dress.”
“I ain’t dissin’ you! I’m just tryin’ to do my own thang.”
“Well, Miss Trena, you do your own thang when you get your own thang. This is my house, and you will do what I say and dress the way I say.”
Trena began stomping up the stairs. “Then I’m gettin’ out of your house.”
“You keep talking to me like that, you’ll be leaving here on a stretcher. And don’t be walking away from me, young lady, I’m talking to you.”
Trena stopped climbing the stairs. Her bottom lip shot out.
“Mom, I told you how she was acting,” Cheryl said.
“See, Mom,” Trena said, “you getting on me because of Cheryl. She’s . . .”
“Don’t even put me in it.”
“. . . tellin’ you lies about me!”
“Trena, you’re the one that messed up,” Cheryl said. “You stayed out late. You—”
“Cheryl, I got this,” Maxine said. “Trena, my mother, God bless the dead, would say that you’re smelling your own musk and she’d be right. You’re still a child, but you think you’re grown. When you start thinking that you’re grown, you need to be out on your own.”
“Are you puttin’ me out? You’re putting me out, aren’t you?”
“That’s not what she said,” Cheryl said. “She said—”
“Mind your business, Cheryl!”
“Trena,” Maxine said, pulling Trena around to face her, “if you don’t live by my rules I will put you out.”
Trena stared in disbelief at her mother. If he
r mother could even say out loud that she would put her out, then she didn’t care about her. She didn’t love her. “That’s all right. I can make it on my own,” she said, continuing on up the stairs.
“You think you can, Miss Smart Behind.” Maxine followed close behind Trena. “I promise you, everything’s not as easy as you think. You got it good here, Trena, you just don’t know it. You’re rushing to be grown and on your own, but one day you’re going to wish to God that you could be a child again.”
“No, I’m not. I’m—”
“Oh, yes you will. Mark my word, Trena, you will. And don’t think you’re not on punishment for coming home at three in the morning. You will not go out of this house for one month, except to go to school or with me or your sister. You are confined to your room. Do you understand me?”
Trena stopped three steps below Cheryl. She glared up at her. “You can’t make me stay in the house, that’s child abuse.”
Stepping up on the same step alongside Trena, Maxine again pulled Trena around to face her, but Trena wouldn’t look at her. It was Cheryl she glared at.
“I am your mother, Trena. You are not mine. I know you’re not telling me what I can’t do to you. If you think punishing you is child abuse, then you don’t know very much at all.”
Defiant, Trena said under her breath to Cheryl, “I hate you.”
“Trena, Mom’s not beating you or depriving you of food. She’s punishing you for being delinquent. You—”
“Shut up, Cheryl! Leave me alone!”
“Cheryl, I’m handling your sister,” Maxine said.
“Fine. I’m out of this.”
“It’s about time,” Trena snapped. She started to go around Cheryl, but Maxine stopped her.
“Trena, you’re out of control. In my heart, I know you’re headed for trouble. Maybe it’s partly my fault. I haven’t been home much because of my hours, but I’ve always done the best I could by you, and so has your sister. But I see what the problem is. You’re beginning to smell your own tail.”
“My tail don’t stink,” Trena sniped, rolling her eyes.
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