Wayward Dreams

by Gail McFarland

  The man behind the desk seemed amused by her plight. He slipped the card through the reader and waited. “Declined,” he finally said.

  Her stomach clenched and Bianca decided that she’d better hurry up and pay the movers in cash before someone called the cops. She pulled a handful of bills from her wallet and counted them out into two piles on the counter. Her breathing was shallow, and she felt faint when she handed the smaller stack to the Public Storage man and the larger one to Mr. Harper.

  She pretended not to hear Mr. Harper whisper to his nephews, “Told you she had enough.”

  “Just barely,” one of the nephews whispered back, pushing out of the small office.

  “Maybe she shoulda hocked some of her jewelry on the way over here,” the other nephew said too loudly.

  Bianca felt the Public Storage man laughing as she took her receipt and left the office. Six steps away from the office door, she stopped in the building’s shadow and dug deep in her purse. Finding her wallet, she snatched the remaining bills free and counted. Three twenties, a ten, two fives, and four singles—eighty-four dollars. Maybe a little more if she added the change in the bottom of her handbag.

  Her hand went deep, digging for stray coins, when the sound of a man’s laughter brought her head up sharply. The man from the Public Storage office had come from behind his desk and was enjoying a good laugh at her expense. I can’t just stand here and be laughed at. I need a place to lay my head for the night. Bianca turned stiffly and walked to her car. The man was still laughing as she climbed into the Jaguar and kicked off her tennis shoes. Barefooted, she turned her key in the ignition and rolled onto the street.

  Now, what? Where am I going to go? It’s not as if I can just head downtown to the Ritz-Carlton. That would take a credit card, and I know mine don’t work. Damn it, I knew I shouldn’t have listened to him—I should have gotten at least one card of my own for an emergency. Like this.

  Trying hard to order her thoughts, she decided that her next move should be finding an ATM machine and making a withdrawal. An ATM would have a limit on the amount of money she could withdraw within a day, but she would have some cash to work with. Glancing back at the mound of clothing and shoes she had thrown into the Jaguar’s back seat, it took a lot of effort not to burst into tears.

  A quick image of the mess she’d left at Vive la Reine flashed across her mind’s eye, but she had to focus—focus on the next thing to do. A place to stay, she decided, practically. She had to find a place to stay because sleeping in her car was simply not an option.

  Playing the tips of her nails against her teeth, thinking hard, she waited for the traffic light to change. A tanned man with startlingly blue eyes leaned across the seat of his car and waved at her. When she turned her face to him, his smile widened.

  “It’s late for lunch and early for dinner, but I’ll eat anything you suggest,” he called as the light changed.

  Bianca’s foot pressed the accelerator and her car sped across the intersection, leaving the man and his offer behind.

  Ahead of her, the bank sign glowed like a beacon in the afternoon sun. Changing lanes, not even looking to see if her admirer had followed, Bianca swerved across traffic and drove into the bank’s parking lot. Aiming the Jag carefully, she made a tight turn that brought her close to the ATM machine. Holding her breath, she took out her ATM card and reached out the window to slip it into the machine. Feeling like a thief, she keyed her code into the machine and waited.

  She began to wonder why it was taking so long when the blue screen flickered and flashed a message: Insufficient funds.

  “Oh, hell no. This can’t be right. How can that be?” Fighting the urge to slam her fist into the face of the machine, she reached for the teller call button, then stopped short. “There should be plenty of money in this account. I’m only asking for four hundred dollars, just enough to get through the night.”

  He couldn’t care less whether you get through the night or not…

  “I have a right to get through the night.” Bianca sat higher in her seat and pressed the call button.

  “Good afternoon. I’m Ms. Blackmon, how may I help you?”

  Clearing her throat, Bianca shook back her hair and leaned close to the window, keeping her voice low. “There seems to be a problem with my account. I can’t seem to use my ATM card and…”

  “Ms. Coltrane? Is that correct?” The teller’s voice was cool and controlled. “I do see a problem, but I believe that it can be resolved. If you would please come into the office?”

  Now what? The question marking the end of the teller’s invitation immediately troubled Bianca, but she pulled away from the ATM and steered the Jaguar into a parking slot. She pulled her still-damp red boots over the straight legs of her form-fitting jeans and zipped them. I may be down, but I’ll be damned if I’ll look like it.

  She ran quick fingers through her hair and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. Sliding a finger along the neckline of her blouse, she slipped it lower, finding a more flattering line about her slender shoulders. Satisfied that she at least looked like someone who could afford to have business with the bank, she reached for her purse, slid out of the Jag, and sauntered across the parking lot.

  This is all going to work out.

  But as she passed through the heavy glass doors and into the bank’s lobby, Bianca was unsure as to whether the words were prayer or promise.

  “Ms. Coltrane.” The tall, curvy woman with the oversized glasses walked closer and extended her hand. “I’m Erica Lane, accounts manager.”

  Something was really wrong, and this authoritative woman knew what it was. “I spoke to Ms. Blackmon.”

  “Yes, you did, but I’ll be handling this for you. Follow me, please.”

  Lord, what am I walking into? All I wanted was a little money, just enough to last until…

  Bianca followed Ms. Lane’s blue-suited back into a small glass-walled office. When she walked behind the desk, Bianca sat across from her without waiting for an invitation.

  Erica Lane sat and turned a small file face-up on her desk. “Ms. Coltrane, do you mind if we talk, woman to woman?”

  Bianca squirmed, crossing and recrossing her legs, adjusting her jacket, and shifting her purse. “Do I have a choice?”

  “There is always a choice. Do you mind?”

  “I guess not, not if it will help with my account and let me use my ATM card.”

  “I can tell you now that you won’t be using your ATM card,” Ms. Lane said, folding her hands atop the slender file. “Technically, this is not your account. The ATM card cannot be used without the account owner’s permission. That permission has been withdrawn.”

  “Withdrawn? On top of everything else? Why?” Shaking her head, Bianca stumbled to her feet and tried to breathe. Collecting her purse, she realized her hands were shaking. Desperate for exit, her body turned but her feet failed to follow and her ankle twisted slightly on the high heel of her boot nearly sending her to her knees. She grasped the corner of Ms. Lane’s desk, steadying herself.

  “Look, calm down and have a seat.” Watching her sit, the account manager poured water from the pitcher on her desk and offered the glass to Bianca. “Ms. Coltrane, do you have an account of your own with our bank?” Bianca shook her head miserably and returned the empty glass to the desktop.

  “Let me tell you a little story,” Erica Lane began. “I’ve been where you are, and I can probably tell you exactly how you got here. This,” she tapped the file lightly, “tells me exactly how you got here. And it didn’t happen overnight.”

  “No, it didn’t happen overnight, but I don’t think I want to hear your story.” Lips tight, Bianca refused to cry.

  “But it did happen, and now you’re here in my office. Quiet as it’s kept, you share in the blame for it. Every woman needs her own credit history—even women whose men tell them they don’t need to worry.” Bianca started up again, but Erica raised a hand to stall her. “I know it’s hard, Ms
. Coltrane, but I hope you’ll accept this in the spirit in which it’s offered. I’m not trying to judge you. I already told you that I’ve been where you are, but the only one who can fix this mess is you.”

  “How? I can’t even qualify for a loan, now can I?”

  “Not based on this.” Brow furrowed, Erica Lane suddenly looked less authoritative and more like an ordinary woman. Spreading her fingers, she brought them down on the desk with a solid thump. “Do you really want to let this be the best you can do for yourself?” When she spoke again, her voice was low, almost conspiratorial. “Did you love him?”

  Bianca’s eyes widened and her lips parted, but no words followed.

  “Did he ever love you?” Bianca’s lips moved silently; heartsick, she couldn’t find her voice, but the banker wasn’t finished. “You can’t claim it, can you?”

  “No, he never loved me.”

  “But you let him do for you, and that’s how you came to be here in my office.” Erica was relentless but gentle. “Do you really want to allow this Mr. Payne to control your life like this? He didn’t love you, and you know it. Oh, maybe you were in love with the idea of him at one time, but that’s just so much…” She brought her fingers together and blew on them, then opened them to release…nothing. “A man who would leave you like this, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. I wouldn’t let him anywhere near my life. But that’s just me.”

  Bianca huffed and tried to work up a feeling that didn’t begin or end with defeat. It didn’t work. “You’re right.”

  “You bet your sweet ass, I am. You show up here asking why. Did you ask him?”

  “He wouldn’t take my calls.” Bianca looked down at the toes of her clammy boots. Fractured pride was the only thing that kept her breathing.

  Erica folded her hands on top of the file and asked, “Do you have any money? Of your own?”

  “Eighty-four dollars and some change.”

  “I saw you get out of the Jaguar. Eighty-four dollars won’t fill your gas tank.”

  Bianca dropped a hand over her eyes.

  “Did you even see this coming?” When Bianca peeked at the manager through slit fingers, Erica sighed deeply and shook her head. “He planned this, you know.”

  I don’t need this! Bianca slammed a second hand over her eyes. “You think he robbed my store and put me out on the street on the same day to teach me some kind of lesson?” Suddenly on her feet, her hands fell away from her eyes, and fury eclipsed her pain when she slammed her purse to the floor. “Bitch, you’re crazy. We’re not talking about Superman or James Bond.”

  “No, bitch, we’re talking about your ass hitting the ground,” the manager snapped back. “We’re talking about something a simple man put into place that has you so turned around you don’t know which way is up. And now you’re sitting here with a stranger trying to make a life out of eighty-four dollars and change.”

  “He didn’t rob my store.”

  “Neither did I. He took your home and your pride, got you out here doing everything short of panhandling and selling little pieces of yourself on a street corner, and you call me a bitch? Girl, you might be good-looking, but you need to check your priorities and get over your bitch-fit.”

  “I don’t have to take this.”

  “Yes, you do.” Standing, Erica drew a deep breath and walked around her desk. “Judging by the fact that you’re still here, I’m the closest thing you have to a friend right now. Sit down.”

  Bianca sat.

  “Believe it or not, I’ve done this dance, too.” Erica rested a hip against her desk and swung one ankle across the other. “Do you have somewhere to go? Friends? Family?” When Bianca shook her head, Erica sighed. “You’re not exactly the shelter type, and I can’t imagine where you could park that Jag long enough to sleep in it.”

  “I have eighty-four dollars.”

  “And some change. Yeah, I heard you the first time. You know that might only cover a couple of nights at a really cheap motel, and you’ll still need to eat.” When she dropped her hand into her jacket pocket, Erica Lane looked serious. “This is not going to last long. I don’t figure you for a McDonald’s kind of girl, but maybe it will help you get to family or someone who can help.” She pulled her hand free of the pocket and extended two fifties to Bianca.

  Ashamed, Bianca stared at the cash. I called this woman a bitch, and she’s extending herself like this…“I can’t take that.”

  “If you don’t, you’re a bigger fool than the woman who pulled up to that ATM machine looking for cash. That woman at least knew that eighty-four dollars wouldn’t take her very far. Call it a loan, if that will make you feel better.”

  Still hesitating, Bianca stared at the bills a moment longer before taking them. “A loan, then. I’ll get this back to you.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Bianca stood, the manager’s kindness galling her. Wanting to be anywhere other than where she was, she pulled the ATM card from her pocket and folded it back and forth until it finally broke. She laid the two pieces on the desk. “I’m going to handle me from now on.”

  “It won’t be easy, but it really can be done,” Erica Lane whispered, watching Bianca’s stiff back as she left the office. Bianca walked straight out of the door, looking neither right nor left. The manager’s smile was small and hopeful. Sweeping the broken card pieces into the wastebasket, she sighed. Maybe this woman really would make it. She hoped so.

  I am going to handle me, from now on, Bianca vowed again, unlocking her car door. Sitting in the driver’s seat, she had to admit the truth of Erica Lane’s words: KPayne had planned this! Looking at the wrinkled bills Erica had given her, she felt awash with shame and gratitude. But this is definitely a loan, she told herself, and I am going to get it back to her. And she’s right—he planned this.

  Damn him and his squeak-talking mama!

  As much as she wanted to put some of the blame on Catherine Reynolds Payne, Bianca knew she was wrong. Catherine was a snob, not a ride-or-die, out-for-vengeance cutthroat. No, KPayne hadn’t turned to his mother for any of this; this was all him.

  And I let him do it!

  Bianca separated herself from the Jaguar and slammed the car door. Late afternoon sun glittered in the western sky, shining and silhouetting the high Atlanta skyline, and she dipped her hand into her purse for her sunglasses. Slipping them over her eyes, she left the car behind and began to walk with no particular destination in mind.

  KPayne or one of his paid-to-be-right lawyers had to go down to the county office to file for that eviction notice. He had someone pull some strings at the bank to get the money frozen. He had to get my belongings out of the condo. How long did he think about it? A week? Two weeks? All along, looking in my face and planning to dump me as painfully as possible.

  Unexpectedly, AJ Yarborough crossed her thoughts. AJ would never have done anything like this—he was too decent. Bianca was stunned by immediate shame, remembering that he had once loved her and she had treated it like a game; and now this. Payback really was a bitch. Why was it so easy for KPayne to use and discard me?

  Her gaze lifted long enough to catch the eyes of an approaching man. His bold stare held until he drew close enough to whisper: “Girl, you know you’re so fine, I would drink your dirty bathwater.”

  Yeah, right. I’ve heard that one before.

  His step slowed even more and held even with her, laying a hand across his heart. “Ain’t nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you.”

  That’s pretty much what KPayne said—in the beginning.

  She pushed the dark glasses up over her eyes and walked away, leaving her admirer lusting in her wake. Headed back toward her parked car, a single thought surged forward: I could call Julia. As quickly as the thought occurred, she discarded it. How could she call her sister? They’d shared a mother and childhood, and then everything changed between them.

  Standing on the sidewalk with her heart in her throat and her cellphone
in her hand, Bianca tried to think. Opening her cellphone, she scrolled through the directory. Taurean. Back in the day, Taurean Blaque would have been among the first people she would have thought of. But not anymore. Their breakup had been bitterly decisive.

  Ugly breakups had a way of limiting the favors one could ask. Bianca couldn’t help the sigh that escaped her—the breakup with AJ had been just as decisive. But the truth was, if she called him now, he would still probably come, but it would only be out of pity. And as bad as things were, she don’t think that she could survive the look that she already knew would be in his eyes.

  Thumbing the buttons on her phone, she continued to scroll through names until she came to Julia Coltrane, her sister. Julia was nine months younger, but those nine months might as well have been nine light-years. Their lives were totally independent of each other. Different as night and day. Julia was in bed by eight, and Bianca was in a Jag 9x8. The last time they’d seen each other was at John’s funeral.

  John Leighton was the stepfather who’d raised them—or more correctly, who’d been there until the sisters were both eighteen and on the way to college. Betting that their stepfather was glad that they were less than a year apart in age and out of the house at practically the same time was the last thing Bianca and Julia had agreed upon. Calling Julia would be a mistake.

  Bianca found herself back in the parking lot of the now-closed bank. After four, she guessed, opening her car door and dropping into the driver’s seat. She unzipped her boots and slid her tired feet free. When she tossed the damp boots over the seatback, they landed on the discarded AJC the doorman had given her earlier.

  She pulled the paper free and smoothed it against her thigh. Dragging a finger along the column headed Money to Loan, she saw an ad for pawnshops, and she creased the paper around the ad that promised “highest prices paid”.

  Making her way to the pawnshop was easy. When she pushed the door open, a little brass bell tinkled overhead, just like on TV. Pulling off her jewelry and handing it across the counter, hoping to get enough money to get past the crisis, was harder.