Deadly Charm

by Claudia Mair Burney

  “He sure does, Rocky,” Ezekiel said and then turned to me. “And he’ll be restored to his rightful place as the head of his family. God,” he said—and because of his accent it sounded like Gawd, “is going to give you above and beyond all that you ask for. Thus saith the Lord.” He did a little jerk, made a sound like “ha-ba-ba-shondo,” and threw his hands in the air. “Hallelujah.”

  “I’m not pregnant!” I screeched. My mind riffled through my calendar and marked off the three pitiful days that I had my period after I made love with my husband. Days that I cried bitterly because I’d been profoundly disappointed at its appearance.

  Sister Lou cut her eyes at me. “Thank God you got some of them demons out then.” She looked at me with pure disgust. “Pregnant and fulla demons.”

  Before I could come up with an appropriately scathing reply, Ezekiel Thunder covered my hand with his. He leaned in so he could whisper in my ear. “Now, don’t you mind Sissy. She means well.” His breath tickled my ear.

  I knew “Sissy” to be an old Southern endearment. I wondered if Lou could be his natural sister.

  “She gets a little excited.” His drawl extended the sigh sound in “excited.” Honestly, if he’d nibbled my ear, I wouldn’t have been surprised. The man could probably seduce a fruitcake. He pulled himself away from me and touched my chin with his thumb and forefinger—a tender gesture. Almost fatherly. Almost. If I didn’t know he pitched snake oil and was subtly hitting on me as well, I might have liked him.

  “Isn’t he great, babe?”

  I rolled my eyes at Rocky.

  Again, Thunder’s eyes met mine and seemed to permeate me. “God heard your cries like He heard Rebekah’s. You hayave”—and yes, he stretched out “have” over two syllables—“the desire of your heart.”

  Dear God, I have cried like Rebekah.

  His words caressed me like a pair of soft, skilled hands, but I knew this kind of man—this unholy hustler in his alligator shoes and suit expensive enough to feed a multitude. For a moment I felt confused. Oh, he was good. Intellectually, I knew I should feel angry, but his words were smooth and warm.

  I wanted to believe him. The realization shamed me. Everyone around us seemed to disappear. My eyes locked with his. I could feel something inside of me wail and moan, and I couldn’t quiet it. I whispered in my astonishment, “Why are you doing this to me?”

  He squeezed my hand. “God heard you.” Ezekiel Thunder reached up and stroked my braids, his every move hypnotic.

  Without thinking, my hand went to my belly. “Endometriosis. I can’t…”

  “God can.” He grinned like a used-car salesman. “Of course, Jazz had a lot to do with it, too.” He winked at me again. When he said my husband’s name, I snapped out of the weird dreamy state I’d been plunged into. A hot, suffocating anger surged within me. Its force took my breath for a moment.

  Ezekiel Thunder sickened me. Confusion battled with a new bout of nausea in my gut. Heat rushed to my face. One way or another, I was about to lose it.

  I spoke slowly, to keep my rage from roaring out. “How did you know my husband’s name is…”

  Rocky must have told him!

  The anger I held at bay exploded out of me. I stood, knocking my chair out from behind me. “Listen here, Mr. Thunder. I don’t know what Rocky told you about me, but I can assure you that I’m not pregnant and doubt if I ever will be. If you’re under the impression your little word of garbage rather than word of knowledge is going to get an offering out of me, think again. You can play your head games with the poor desperate souls gathered here who need to believe there’s some truth in your prophelying. But I’m not one of them.”

  He simply smiled with his perfect teeth and said, “Jesus said, ‘If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.’” I couldn’t tell if he’d said it for my benefit or because by now we’d gotten an audience with everyone in the room staring at us.

  I reminded him, “The devil can quote Scripture.”

  Sister Lou stood up, probably to cast more demons out of me, but Ezekiel stopped her by moving one finger. She sank back down to her seat.

  I turned to walk away. Where I’d go, I didn’t know.

  At that moment, Madam Thunder swept into the room like a tornado, little Zeekie in tow. The older woman who’d held the baby earlier when I’d talked to him walked behind her as if she were doing surveillance on her.

  Mrs. Thunder walked up to her husband and shoved the child into his arms. “Take him.” Apparently she had the maternal instincts of a Nazi war criminal.

  I took a deep breath and chastised myself for my uncharitable thoughts. Forgive me, Lord. Any mother can get tired. I had judged everyone present and found them wanting before I even walked through the door. I turned to Rocky. “May we please leave?”

  Rocky stood. Just then sweet Baby Thunder called my name.

  “Bay-yell.” He had his father’s accent. From his father’s lap, he reached his arms up, and Ezekiel Thunder picked up the boy and handed him to me. I took the little bundle of fun and squeezed him.

  Little Zeekie put both hands on my cheeks and blew a raspberry on my lips with his wet mouth. My heart felt like it would burst from hope deferred. Oh, God, please, if there’s any way I can still have a child…I imagined my body as hollow as a drum, the once-deafening sound of my biological clock now empty white noise. A tear slipped down my cheek. My throat constricted. I could barely croak out, “Rocky.”

  I guess First Lady Thunder misread me. She snatched the little boy away so roughly he cried.

  I added her to the list of people I’d give a beatdown to. Ezekiel Thunder seized that moment to grab my hand.

  “You have a tumor, Bell. It will cause a lot of problems.”

  I jerked my hand away from him. He couldn’t know. God wouldn’t have told this awful man what I hadn’t even shared with my own doctor or with my sister, who was also a medical doctor, even though she worked with dead people.

  I began to shake with rage. It was all I could do not to disobey the scriptures and lay hands on him suddenly! I turned on my heels and exited the room as quickly as I could. I stormed down the hallway, ignoring the ghosts of children past that haunted me in the little school. My lungs burned, and my heart felt like it would jump out of my chest. I had to remind myself to breathe in and out.

  That insensitive cow wife of his has a baby, but I get a tumor! And I’m not pregnant! And never will be.

  It felt so unfair. How did that awful man know about my tumor? Nobody knows.

  All the terrible things that I’d ever done flooded my memory. I’d left Jesus for Adam. I’d opened up more than my heart to that nutjob. God gave me a baby, and I let Adam kill her. I didn’t let Jazz help me. Love me. Now a tumor inhabited my belly. I hadn’t told a soul about it, knowing that through my neglect I was committing suicide on the layaway plan. Who was I to ask God for help?

  Confusion covered me like a burka. Thunder’s words beat upon my brain.

  You have a tumor.

  You’re positively radiant with child.

  With child.

  But I’d had my period. I couldn’t be…

  I heard Rocky call “Babe” from somewhere behind me. I didn’t turn around. I snatched my cell phone out of my coat pocket and punched 411 for directory assistance. The operator could barely get out, “Information, what—”

  “Yellow Cab, please. I’m in Inkster, Michigan.” I didn’t know if Inkster had a Yellow Cab company, but everywhere else on Earth seemed to.

  Except Inkster. I sighed. “Any old cab will do. I just need to get outta here.”

  She must have heard the distress in my voice. The operator connected me to Big Four Cab, and I managed to squeak out my location through my sobbing. I tore out of the double doors, past the big, beefy guards, and into the icy night air.

  Rocky trailed behind me until he trotted up to take my hand. “Babe, come back. He didn’t mean to upset you. He said to tell you he
’s sorry. You don’t have to call a cab. I’ll take you home.”

  I put my phone away without canceling my cab. “Look around, Rocky.”

  He looked, confused. “What?”

  “Do you notice something different?”

  “Um. Nooooo.”

  “Your truck. It’s gone.”

  Rocky stood there, mouth agape, scratching his blond dreadlocks.

  I sighed. “I told you to lock your doors.”

  So much for the protection those two Goliaths offered. I felt sorry for Rock, but he was with his people. He’d find a way home, and his insurance would cover the truck. I didn’t even want to offer to share my cab with him.

  He used his cell phone to call the police. We waited outside in the freezing air, even though Rocky didn’t have his coat on. By the time the police arrived, so had my cab.

  “Are you going to be all right?” he asked.

  I felt so vulnerable, I actually wished he’d call me babe. “As soon as I’m far away from here.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I wanted God to speak to you.”

  “It was a very foolish choice for you to make for me, Rocky. I knew I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Sorry. Babe…” I don’t know what would have trailed behind that “Babe,” but I didn’t want to find out.

  “Not sorrier than I am, Rocky.”

  “Let me pay for your cab.”

  “That’s okay. I just wanna go.”

  He nodded, sadness brimming in those hound dog eyes.

  Cost me sixty dollars to get home. I couldn’t afford it, but it felt like the best money I’d ever spent.

  Thunder was right. I didn’t leave there like I came.

  chapter five

  FINALLY, IT’S FRIDAY. Friday means that the next day I wouldn’t have to see anybody at the Washtenaw County Jail or my private practice. It means I could stay up until the wee hours of the morning watching season after season of Columbo on DVD. I could eat popcorn, Oreos, and Cold Stone Creamery Berry Berry Berry Good ice cream with nobody to tell me, “You should stop. You’re getting fat.”

  This particular Friday had the distinction of being the day after I’d gotten the golden zillions braids taken out of my hair. I had my hair dyed off-black again—the closest I could get to my natural color, sans the streaks of gray—and walked out with a new set of braids that had taken three braiders four hours to weave onto my head. They looked fabulous, though. Long, tiny, flowing braids with the ends loose, falling just below my shoulders in soft, curly waves. The style, romantic and versatile, required little upkeep and allowed for Charlie’s Angels–like hair shaking.

  I arrived at my office parking lot, excited about showing my new hairdo to Maggie, my secretary, when a sinking feeling came over me—sinking as in the Titanic, with no fine Leonardo to take the edge off the tragedy.

  I knew something wicked this way came. Every single car parked in the ridiculously small lot belonged to someone I knew.

  Now what?

  I shouldn’t have wondered. Should have just said no, like Nancy Reagan told us in the eighties.

  Go back home, Bell. I hadn’t yet touched the ice cream in my freezer. The Godiva store had plenty of chocolate-covered strawberries—just in time for Valentine’s Day—and I could make it there by the time they opened. No harm, no foul. Let Maggie handle the crisis.

  But, no, I soldiered on.

  My heart pounded, and I took a few steps toward the building, telling myself that it was good news that brought my loved ones together.

  Not!

  Good news, my eye! It was more likely that an episode of the Jerry Springer show awaited me! I didn’t want Jerry Springer. I wanted my client Bill, who compulsively sang Chaka Khan songs. He at least was easy to deal with.

  The conspicuous absence of the blue, unmarked, police-issued Crown Victoria that my husband, Jazz, drove didn’t escape my attention. Whatever they’d planned to ambush me with, Jazz wasn’t in on it.

  I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.

  I gathered my strength about me like I would pull my great-grandmother’s quilt around my shoulders. If she were here, my namesake would say, “It ain’t courage if you ain’t scared.” Besides, if they could ambush me at work, they could ambush me at home. I should be thankful they weren’t all crowded into my apartment.

  I got out of the Love Bug, fortifying myself with the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

  I went with the long version. I figured it couldn’t hurt since I didn’t know what awaited me. I slipped quietly into the corridor of my office. The scent of a special Valentine’s Day coffee blend that Maggie got from Whole Foods greeted me. It had a sumptuous chocolate and raspberry flavor that made my toes curl inside my shoes. In a good way. It occurred to me that my heightened senses probably meant I’d been overcome by hormones and was now in the throes of a biological nightmare intent on barring me from motherhood for good. My poor, ailing biological clock. Every now and then I’d hear a cough or sputter from it as it marched in a funeral procession toward its premature death. Most days I pretended not to hear it. My marriage had crashed and burned. Why not my reproductive organs, too?

  Nary a soul was at Maggie’s desk. I’d hoped to find her holding court in the reception area as per usual, ready to give me a full report on what I’d be walking into.

  “Maggie?”

  She called from inside my office, “Amanda Bell, is that you?”

  “Who else would it be? Everybody else is already here.”

  “Don’t get smart with me.”

  Honestly! I’m about to get roasted and still have to watch my mouth.

  I passed through the reception area and stepped into my office. Everybody indeed sat in there, and by everybody, I mean all the important people in my life, with two very notable exceptions: Jazz and my daddy.

  Sasha, my mother, controlled the gathering from my favorite, way-cool purple leather office chair—which I’d bought myself as a belated birthday gift.

  Both of the fine European wingback chairs Maggie had given me when I opened my office were filled, as well as the few cute, armless modern chairs usually in my reception area. Carly, in scrubs, sat in one of the wingbacks. Her black hair hung past her shoulders. An unlit cigarette dangled precariously from her mouth.

  Next to her, my girlfriend Kalaya sat, tall, gloriously brown, with long legs crossed, resplendent in her class-with-sass style. She sat by her boyfriend Souldier, also known as cocoa brown, dreadlocked fineness. He also happened to be my husband’s best friend. Souldier, a midnight-shift man, had probably just gotten off work. He still had on his heavy blue nylon Crime Scene Unit jacket.

  My in-laws, Jack and Addie Lee Brown, were present and accounted for, along with my spiritual father, Dr. Mason May. Rocky sat next to him.

  We were about to have a grueling group-therapy session. I just knew it.

  “Did something bad happen? Because you all have to know it would be a terrible conflict of interest for me to see any of you as patients, even in a group session.”

  Carly lit her cigarette and began to smoke furiously. I noticed she’d taken a paper cup from the kitchenette to use as an ashtray.

  “We’re not the crazy person in your life,” she said, puffing away.

  “No comment on that,” I said. “And this is a smoke-free office, Carly.”

  My mother stood up at my desk like she was about to begin a sales presentation. “This is an intervention, Bell.”

  “An intervention?” I didn’t recall abusing drugs or alcohol. What kind of addiction do they think…

  “You’re getting fat.”

  “I told you,” Maggie said to my mother.

  Maggie, who did not get fat and always looked fantastic, gave her a triumphant nod. The snitch.

  Fortunately, a few kind loved ones averted their eyes when Ma started in on my weight, except Addie Lee, my husband’s mother, who intently st
ared at me. Still, my defenses soared.

  “You’re doing an intervention because I gained a few pounds?”

  “A few?” Carly quipped. “It looks like you’ve gained about ten, maybe twelve.”

  “Seven! I’ve gained seven pounds.”

  “Have you seen your abs?”

  “I haven’t seen my abs since 1987. Abs don’t count. I’m bloated. And I’m not addicted to food.” Well, maybe ice cream, but did that mean I needed a 12-step program?

  Kalaya spoke up. “We’re not here about your weight, Bell, which I think looks great on you. Your mom just mentioned your weight to be…”

  “Vicious?”

  “Um…I was going to say motherly.”

  “How ’bout truthful?” Sasha said, her face looking like the innocent little lamb she wasn’t.

  Even Rocky agreed. “You do look a little fluffy, babe.”

  “Fluffy?” It sounded better than fat, but not much. “And don’t call me babe.”

  Addie threw this jewel out there. “Sweetheart, are you pregnant?”

  I sputtered. They were doing a pregnancy intervention? The wicked spawns of evil.

  “No!” I shouted.

  Rocky supplied. “Bell’s very sensitive about her pregnancy.”

  “I’m not pregnant! What is this so-called intervention about? I. AM. NOT. PREGNANT!”

  Sasha shook her head. “Umph, umph, umph. I knew someone would get pregnant. I had a dream about fish. I thought it would be your reporter friend.”

  “Hey,” Kalaya said, “I’m doing the right thing with him.” She nodded to Souldier, crossed her arms defensively, and scowled.

  “Maybe it’s Carly,” I said. “She’s the one with a sex life.”

  “Not anymore,” Carly said. “And I wouldn’t smoke if I were pregnant.”

  Rocky said, tentatively, because Carly hates him, “Maybe you should put that out, with Bell being an expectant mom and all.”

  I tried to reiterate. “I’m not pregnant.”

  Addie Lee didn’t buy it. “I knew you were pregnant. As soon as you walked in, I could see it all over you.” Tears welled in her eyes. Jack, who happened to be sitting near one of several boxes of Kleenex strategically positioned in my office, snatched up a tissue and handed it to her.