“Spoken like a true person who’s never owned a thing,” Jules said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shay replied.
“It means human nature is something else, that’s what it means.”
Shay looked at Jules with pure hatred in her eyes. “Human nature, huh? You mean like the fact that you’re still with Jeremy Druce after eighteen years and still believe he’s gonna marry you?”
“Shay!” Simone said, knowing that the subject of Jeremy was always a very sore point for Jules.
“It’s all right,” Jules said. “I’m used to her now.” Then she looked at Shay. “At least I got a man,” she said.
“I got a man, too.”
“Yeah, one that’s sitting in some jail cell trying to put the blame on you.”
“I got plenty men,” Shay continued as if Jules had never responded. “Plenty, all right? You might have your little company, you might have your little college degree, but that don’t make you better than me. In fact, it’s just the opposite because you know and I know that if it wasn’t for all those little suggestions I’ve been giving you, all those marketing schemes you present to your clients as if you thought them up, you’d go out of business tomorrow.”
“In your dreams,” Jules said incredulously. “We barely talk, Shay, and when we do it’s always about you asking me to get you out of one jam or another one. Girl, please. You’re so unstable you couldn’t keep an ant in business.”
“Yeah, whatever, Jules.”
“Okay, ladies,” Simone said, accustomed to refereeing her hair stylists, too, “let’s not get into the tit-for-tat.”
“I’m just sayin’,” Shay said. “She need to sweep around her own out-house before she come sweeping around mine.”
“How poetic,” Jules said.
“Where is this attorney?” Simone asked, not in the least interested in their bickering. “Who is he, anyway? Is he really good?”
“He’s one of the best,” Jules said. “His name is Ethan Graham and they call him Bulldog Graham around here. He’s excellent. He ain’t the problem. Shay’s the problem.”
“I am not!”
“Yes, you are,” Jules said firmly. “All you have to do is tell the state attorney that you had nothing to do with any drug buys and drug drops and all that craziness Mookie’s trying to pin on you. Then they’ll drop the charges and that’ll be the end of it. They couldn’t care less about getting you. It’s Mookie and his operation they want.”
“And I’ll have to testify against him, won’t I?”
“Of course you will, Shay, what you think this is?”
“Then I’m not interested,” Shay said. “I’m no snitch, okay? Everybody knows that Shay-Shay don’t roll like that, okay?”
“When Shay-Shay gets life in prison, maybe even death row if they uncover some nasty little murders in that drug operation of Mookie’s, and Shay-Shay’s rolling for real, then I want to see how proud you are then. I want to see how great you hold up that tough girl reputation of yours then.”
“Whatever,” Shay said with a lot less vitriol, and Simone, understanding sore spots better than most, decided to change the subject.
“I’ve been offered outrageous sums of money if I sell my shop,” she said, and this got both of her sisters’ attention.
“Really?” Jules said.
“Oh, yeah. I’m getting offers all the time. My place is prime real estate in Atlanta, they tell me, and the big boys want it bad.”
“And you aren’t interested?”
“Not really, no,” Simone said slowly, a little surprised that Jules would ask that.
“And why not?” Shay asked. “You all alone in Atlanta, with nothing going for you from what I can see. You should sell that little salon of yours while the going’s hot and come to Miami, where you belong.”
“I doubt if I belong here, Shay,” Simone said.
“Well it ain’t like you belong in Atlanta. What you got there? Other than that salon?”
“I’ve got a nice apartment. I’ve got a nice cat. I’ve got a wonderful church and community that fully embraces me. I’ve got a lot there, Shay.”
“But do you have blood there? Are your sisters there? Your family? That’s the point, Simone. You need to be here with us. With me and Jules. We need you.”
Shay said this so heartfelt that even Jules looked uncomfortable. Simone, however, looked alarmed. She stared at both of her sisters. They were joking. They had to be! She couldn’t come back here. They had to know that. And that was why she decided to laugh it off.
“Yeah, right,” she said. “Y’all need me, all right.”
“We do,” Shay said earnestly. “Don’t we, J?”
Simone looked at Jules. Surely she wouldn’t play along with this foolishness. She didn’t need Simone. She never really did. But Jules stared at her latte, took a sip, and then looked at Simone. “It would be nice,” she said.
Simone could hardly believe it. “What would be nice?”
“If you consider selling up and moving back to Miami. It would be nice.”
Simone was dumbstruck. Did they not forget why she left in the first place? How desperately unstable she had become? But before she could voice that disbelief, before she could express in no uncertain terms what she thought about the “niceness” of their request, Shay’s attorney finally showed up and took a seat directly across from her.
Ethan Graham was a man in a hurry. Simone could see that right off. He didn’t waste time on small talk, he didn’t pretend that he was in the least interested in their well-being. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, pulling papers out of his briefcase, “but I was held up in court. Now, Miss Serita, have you thought about what we discussed?”
“Excuse me, Ethan,” Jules said, always offended by ill-manners, “I don’t think you’ve met our sister.”
It was then that Ethan so much as looked Simone’s way. And when he did, and saw the beauty of her grass-green eyes, the smoothness of her toned brown skin, the elegance of her long hair now in well-parted, neat braids down her back, he seemed transfixed. “Hello,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m Ethan Graham.”
He extended his hand and Simone shook it. “I’m Simone Rivers,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Graham.”
“Ethan, please.”
“Ethan.”
“So what’s the verdict, Ethan?” Jules asked him. “Is there any way around Shay’s lack of cooperation?”
“You’re not from around here?” Ethan asked, still staring at Simone.
“No,” Simone said, suddenly uncomfortable with his undisguised interest.
“Of course not. I would have remembered you if you were. Where’re you from?”
“Atlanta.”
“Atlanta? No sweat? I got my first job in Atlanta, in the public defender’s office.”
“Good for you. Good seasoning I’d bet.”
“Excellent seasoning. Where in Atlanta?”
“Ethan,” Jules said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but this is about Shay, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Ethan flushed, which made Simone smile. First appearances could be so deceiving. When she first saw the man, she would have never guessed that he could be embarrassed by anything. “Yes,” he said to Jules, “you’re right. As usual.” He said this with a winning smile and then finally, if not reluctantly, removed his gaze from Simone.
Simone, however, kept her eye on him. He was very good looking, for one thing, with a very prominent air about him that made folks pay attention. He wasn’t very tall, just around five-ten, she suspected, and he was almost thin as a rail, but there was something strong about him, something real. His dark brown skin, his low-cut hair, his big, gorgeous brown eyes, his full, beautiful lips. He looked no-nonsense and behaved, for the most part, no-nonsense, but for some odd reason that simple quality immediately endeared him to her. He was a man with more than sex on the brain, she could tell, even when he was all but gawking at her. She’d had her share
of men staring at her, trying to get next to her, laying all kinds of lines on her, but she wouldn’t place Ethan Graham in that category at all. He seemed above all of that, a man who admired a woman’s looks without getting all nasty with it. And the fact that he could pay her attention, without it disgusting her the way it usually did, didn’t hurt her estimation of him, either. Then she shrugged it all off. It didn’t matter, anyway.
“Have you thought about what we discussed, Serita?” he said just as his cell phone began ringing. He reached for it, checked out the caller ID, and then held up one hand as he answered. While he talked on his cell, Jules and Shay looked at Simone and were smiling. Jules even mouthed the words, he likes you, with over-exaggerated lip movement. Simone rolled her eyes, which made her sisters laugh.
“Sorry about that,” Ethan said when he flipped shut his cell. “Now where were we?”
“You like Simone, don’t you?” Shay said and Jules looked at her in horror.
“Shay!” she said, astounded. Simone, however, could only smile, especially when Ethan looked as if he’d just been busted.
“Excuse me?” he said as if he had no clue what she was talking about.
“Don’t encourage her, Ethan,” Jules warned. “She would rather talk about everything and anything but her legal situation, that’s what she’s trying to do.”
Shay looked sidelong at her sister. “And who died and made you Doctor Phil?” she asked.
“Anyway,” Ethan said, taking Jules advice to heart, “as I told you last week, Serita, the state attorney is willing to deal if you’re willing to talk.”
“No.”
“Shay!”
“No, Jules. I told y’all I’m no snitch. Y’all can forget that.”
“But think of what will happen to you if you don’t turn state’s evidence, child! Mookie Davenport is not worth it and you know it!”
“You don’t know nothing about Mookie, so don’t even go there, all right?”
“He’s a low-life, low-class, drug-dealing piece of scum ruining the black community, what else I need to know?”
“You need to mind your business, Jules, that’s what else you need to know.”
“You need to mind yours, Shay,” Simone finally spoke and everybody, especially Ethan, looked at her. “As soon as those officers arrested this boyfriend of yours he couldn’t wait to implicate you, to try and blame this entire mess on you. Are you minding that part of your business, Shay? Are you really so far gone that you’ll take the heat for a man like that?”
“Look who’s talking,” Shay said. “At least I wasn’t so desperate in love that I tried to–”
“Shay, that’s enough!” Jules said urgently, and Shay folded her arms.
“Y’all just need to back up and stay off my case, all right?”
“Impossible,” Ethan said and Shay looked at him.
“That’s what you think.”
“Your sisters are right, Serita. Davenport hasn’t just implicated you, he’s asking to turn state’s evidence against you. He wants to plea big time and his attorney did not hesitate to make that fact well known.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ethan exhaled. “It means, Serita, that he’s asked, no, begged, to testify against you at trial; to take that witness stand and back up everything he’s already said about your central role in the organization; how you, not he, ran the whole drug dealing scheme. He’s making every overture he can to cop a plea even as we speak.”
This had the effect of cutting Shay short, something Simone and Jules rarely ever witnessed. “He’s trying to get the deal y’all want me to take?”
“As we speak.”
“We’ve been telling you that all along,” Jules said. “Mookie ain’t thinking about you, girl. All he wants is to save his own behind and he doesn’t care who goes down with him. His own attorney will tell you that.”
“But how can he. . .,” Shay wanted to ask but stopped. She looked at Ethan.
“He can because Jules is right,” Ethan said. “He doesn’t care a thing about you. He’s putting the entire weight of the crimes he’s been charged with right back on you, as if you’re some modern day Ma Barker pulling all of the strings on his poor, helpless self. It’s his testimony against you he’s offering in exchange for some serious leniency. That way, they’ll get you both. That’s his big trump card. Nobody gets to walk. He knows he won’t, and, if the state attorney makes a deal with him, you won’t, either. Of course, if you agree to cooperate you’re be released, all charges dropped, and only Davenport will have to face the music. But either way, Serita, Davenport will face the music. The question here today is will you face it with him.”
Shay just sat there, unable to say another word, her long, fake lashes leaned down against her eyes. Jules leaned over and patted her hand.
“What kind of time are we talking about, Mr. Graham?” Simone asked and Ethan looked at her. “Ethan,” she amended.
“Twenty-five to life,” he said and Serita swallowed hard.
Simone looked at her baby sister. She’d been nothing but a headache since she returned to them from Georgia, but she never would have taken her for a fool. “Did you hear that, Shay? Twenty-five years in prison. Twenty-five years. Can you imagine what that’ll be like? You’re no hardened criminal, but that’s who you’ll be around. Hard criminals.
“And they’ll have a field day with a pretty girl like you,” Jules added. “You wouldn’t stand a chance in a place like that.”
“All right!” Shay said so forcefully that others at nearby tables looked over. Then she exhaled and spoke lower. “All right. Y’all ain’t got to play up the drama, I get it.” Then she looked at Ethan. Looking, Simone thought, like the child she remembered her as. “All charges will be dropped?”
Ethan began nodding his head. “Every one,” he said.
Shay thought about it and thought about, as all of the others sat in suspended animation, stunned that she could possibly believe that there was anything to think about. Finally she, too, nodded her head. “Okay,” she said and Jules shouted hallelujah.
“Yes, Lord!” Jules said. “It’s about time!”
“I’m set to meet with State Attorney Edmonds this afternoon,” Ethan said. “I’ll tell him it’s a go. He’ll set up a meeting.”
“And they’ll drop the charges at that meeting?” Simone asked.
“Well, now, it won’t be that easy, as Shay already knows. She’ll have to give them a proffer first. And if her testimony at Davenport’s trial turns out to be what she said it would be, then, yes, they’ll drop the charges.”
“Why can’t they do it right away? They may not trust Shay, but why should she have to trust them?”
“Because, my friend, she has no choice in the matter. This is a sweetheart deal for your sister, I assure you. They have enough on her and Davenport to prosecute them both right now. If it wasn’t for my reputation as a hard nose, somebody they don’t want to mix it up with at trial- and I’m not bragging- but they would have otherwise never went along with a plea like this. Normally they would want Serita to do some time, a year or two at the least, especially given her ill-advised, dumb, stupid, crazy confession. But—”
“But because of you they’ll let her walk free. That’s what you’re telling us?”
“I’m not bragging–”
“Yes, you are,” Jules said. “But you’re right. That’s why all of these big firms around here want you on their payroll. You get results. That’s a fact. And that’s why me and Jeremy hired you.”
Ethan looked at Jules. “Speaking of Jeremy,” he said. “What’s up with that? I know he’s full of wonders, but that’s kind of weird, don’t you think? I mean, why would they want to give it to a man with a black girlfriend?”
Jules was sincerely lost. She had no clue what Ethan was talking about. “Pardon me?” she said. “Give what to him?”
Ethan couldn’t believe she didn’t know. “That award, Jules, come
on. I’m sure he’s not going to accept it, but the fact that they would offer it was just. . . weird to me.”
Jules stared at Ethan. “Will you please tell me what you’re talking about?” she asked him.
Now he stared at her. “You’re jiving, right?”
“Does it look like I’m jiving?”
Ethan’s smile vanished as he looked at Jules and realized that she was completely serious. She was, in fact, undeniably baffled. He looked at Simone and Shay. “Y’all know, though, right?”
“Know what?” Shay asked, unable to hide her anticipation. “Something about Jeremy?”
“Yeah, but. . . I don’t know. This is weird. It was in the morning paper, so I just assumed... Maybe Jeremy should—”
“Don’t even try that with me, Ethan,” Jules said impatiently. “Just tell me what it is, please?”
Ethan exhaled, ran his hand across his face, and then reached into his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper. Shay snatched the paper from him just as he was about to open it up.
“Building Inspector Accused of Rape,” she read from the paper’s headline.
“It’s in the metro section,” Ethan said. “You mean to tell me none of you read the paper this morning, or saw the news?”
“I read the paper,” Simone said. “But it was an Atlanta paper.”
“That’s right, you’re the out-of-towner.” Then he smiled. “Gracing us with your beauty.”
“He’s been named Citizen of the Year by the Drake Society,” Shay said, and then looked over at Jules. “Isn’t the Drake Society like the Ku Klux Klan?”
Jules, stunned to the point of disbelief as she grabbed the paper from Shay and read it for herself. Simone looked over the top and saw, upside down, the headline: Well-known Surgeon Given Controversial Drake Award.
“And he accepted it?” Simone asked Jules. Simone wouldn’t put it past that Jeremy Druce, but even he, she figured, couldn’t be that crazy.
“They’ve offered it,” Jules said, “according to this paper.”
“But the Drake Society is a joke. It’s one of the worse white supremacy groups in this country,” Simone said. “They spread their hate in the name of conservatism; in the name of politics. But Shay’s right. They’re no better than the KKK.”
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