by Shelly Ellis
Cris didn’t care if he was annoying her. He had too much nervous energy to sit on a couch right now. He had taken Lauren’s advice to heart and decided to try to talk to Jamal. She was right. He and Jamal had been friends since college. A friendship that had lasted that long was worth salvaging. Lauren had made the suggestion to send Jamal a note if he couldn’t work up the will to call him. But Cris thought against it. That was a “woman” thing to do. No, if he was going to make up with his longtime friend, he would do it his way.
A few minutes passed before the elevator doors opened. Jamal stepped out into the waiting room, looking tired and irritated.
“What’s up, Cris?”
“Hey.” Cris pushed himself away from the receptionist desk.
“Have you had lunch yet? Want to grab something to eat?”
Jamal shook his head. “I’m really busy, man. I’ve got this big case coming up in court in a few days and I was—”
“Come on, take a break,” Cris insisted, nudging his friend’s shoulder. “It might do you some good. Just an hour. Eat some buffalo wings, have a beer.” He paused. “Plus, we should . . . we should talk.”
Jamal gazed at Cris for several seconds, his face solemn as he considered his friend’s words. For a moment, Cris wondered if his longtime friend was going to refuse him. He watched Jamal with bated breath until Jamal finally said, “OK, I guess I can step out for lunch, but you’re paying.”
The two men kept the conversation light as they walked down Main Street to a sports bar three blocks away from Jamal’s law offices. They talked about the baseball season, the weather predictions that said this week’s temperatures would reach at least one hundred degrees, and the new Mazda Jamal was thinking about buying. As they stepped inside, they were instantly met by the sound of an Angels vs. Orioles game playing on the flat-screen television over the bar and the sound of bawdy conversation and laughter. The room was filled with plenty of men and a few women. A light haze of smoke hung in the air along with the heavy smell of greasy, fried food.
The hostess sat them at a highboy table with a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. It was near the front of the bar room, adjacent to the floor-to-ceiling windows where both men could people watch as they talked. Soon after a waiter took their order—two beers, fire engine hot Buffalo wings for Jamal, and an Angus burger and waffle fries for Cris—they fell into an awkward silence, waiting for the other to speak first. They had exhausted all casual conversation. It was time to get to the nitty-gritty, the reason why they both were here.
Cris loudly cleared his throat. “So . . . uh . . . I wanted to explain to you . . . you know . . . what happened at the country club.”
Jamal’s facial expression instantly became sullen. He leaned back on his barstool as he ate from the sports bar’s complimentary nacho basket at the center of the table. “You don’t have to explain,” he said between chews. “Lauren Gibbons happened. She screwed with your head and you acted accordingly, making an ass out of yourself.”
“I didn’t make an ass out of myself! I had to stand up for Lauren, especially in front of that asshole!” He took a calming breath. “Look, Jay, you’ve got it all wrong about her. She’s really a—”
“—scheming, heartless gold digger,” Jamal said drolly. “Yeah, I know. Everyone in town knows. You’re just too damn blind to see it, brothah.”
“Look, I’ll admit her past isn’t the prettiest. I’ll admit she’s done some dirty things! She’s taken advantage of men. She’s used them for their money. But she was taught to be that way. She’s trying to change!”
“So she says. But it’s probably just some game she’s running. She’s a great con artist, Cris. Like you said, she was taught to be that way.”
Cris clenched his jaw. He closed his eyes and thought for a second, trying to figure out a way to reach his friend, trying to break down that mental wall Jamal had erected around himself. He opened his eyes again.
“Do you remember sophomore year in college?” Cris suddenly asked. “You remember Portia Stanley?”
Jamal put down his nacho and perked up. “Hell, yeah, I remember her! She was gorgeous and she had those great . . .” He cupped his hands over his chest and grinned, mimicking her bountiful breasts that still stood out in his memory, almost two decades later.
“She used to drop by our dorm room all the time,” Cris continued. “She’d always just happen to show up at the student union when we were having lunch. She went to all my games.”
“Yeah, she was crazy about you, man!”
“No, she wasn’t,” Cris said bluntly, making his friend frown again. “She didn’t give a shit about me. I could have been anybody. Any star player on the football team would have sufficed. That’s why I never asked her out. She was a groupie . . . and I saw her from a mile away. My dad taught me to be on the lookout for that type of woman just as early as Lauren’s mom started teaching her to be a gold digger. My spider senses have never failed me, Jay. They aren’t failing me now, either.”
The waiter returned with their beers and their orders. Jamal sat silently for several seconds, not touching his food. Cris could see his resolve starting to wane.
“You really think she’s changed, Cris?”
“I’d bet my life on it,” Cris answered firmly.
“But why? Why the big turnaround? Those women have been the same damn way for the past fifty years!”
“I think a lot of things played a role in it. She’s been questioning her whole lifestyle for years, even if she was too scared to ask those questions out loud. But she blames James. He was the big push she needed. He beat her up badly. She had to run away from him and ended up running away from that life, too.”
“Now that’s what definitely makes me think she’s full of it! I don’t believe that shit for one second! James is a good guy. I’ve known him for the past seven years. He would never, ever do that! He would never hit a woman!”
“She said she knew no one would believe her,” Cris said, sampling his fries. “It was her word against his and no one would take the word of a Gibbons over James Sayers.” He paused. “I guess she was right.”
Jamal angrily shoved aside his plate of Buffalo wings. “OK, fine, I’ll play along then. She’s changed. James is the biggest asshole in the world. But even if it’s all true, even if she isn’t a gold digger anymore because James beat the crap out of her, why are you even bothering with her? You hate drama! You always have, and this girl is knee-deep in it. Either way, it’s not worth it! She’s got too much damn baggage, Cris!”
“I know, but trust me . . . it’s worth it. She’s worth it!”
“Oh, she is?” Jamal asked sarcastically. “And that reason would be?”
“Well, because . . . because . . .” Cris thought for a second. “Because . . . she makes me feel emotions I haven’t felt in a long time. I mean . . . I love her, Jay.”
“You love her?” Jamal stared at Cris, completely stunned. “How the hell can you love her? You’ve only known her for less than two months!”
“I didn’t know there was a time line requirement for this sort of thing.”
“You know what I mean! It’s just . . . well . . . kind of sudden. You’re a dude who takes things slowly. Saying you’re in love with her already, seems . . . kind of fast.”
“What can I tell you? People change. Lauren’s changed. I guess I have, too. She changed me.”
Jamal let out a low whistle. “Seriously, Cris, I don’t understand the voodoo that this girl does to you. But I guess I don’t have to understand it.” He tilted his head and smiled. “She must be really good in bed.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Cris took a sip from his beer. “We haven’t had sex yet.”
Jamal’s eyes widened comically. “What? Oh, hell, no! If you’re going to put up with all this drama, you better get in those panties, posthaste! You should be knocking it out every night! I know I would.”
“Of course you would, Jay.”
Jamal fin
ally started to eat his Buffalo wings, spiting particles of food as he spoke. “Hey, did I ever tell you about the chick in Miami that I met five years ago?” He licked the red tangy sauce off his fingers. “I mean, that girl always had some shit going on. She had a crazy-ass mother, a stalker ex-boyfriend, and this killer yappy Chihuahua who wore a diamond collar. But, man, let me tell you! She could do things to my dick that could make a brothah sing! I mean, she could . . .”
Cris grinned as he bit into his burger while Jamal spoke. It seemed like things with his friend were back to normal.
Chapter 24
“I still don’t see why you need to buy a new dress,” Lauren said as she slouched into the suede club chair in the posh dressing room. She gazed with boredom at her sister Stephanie. “I know you. You probably still have dresses at home with the tags on them. Why can’t you wear one of those?”
Her sister twirled on the carpeted platform, admiring herself and her plum silk gown in the three-way mirror. She gave a wink and a smile at her reflection, making Lauren roll her eyes.
“Because wearing an old dress is something I just don’t do! Besides, it’s a special occasion. We’ve got to look our best or Cynthia won’t let us hear the end of it.”
Grudgingly, Lauren nodded in agreement.
The Historic Preservation Association was holding a major party in less than two weeks in honor of the recent renovations of one of the historic mansions outside of Chesterton, a project that Cynthia had spearheaded. All the Gibbons girls had agreed to attend the event to show their support. Lauren planned to ask Cris to go with her. But unlike her sister Stephanie, Lauren did not plan to buy a new dress for the occasion.
Not only could she not afford to buy a dress, but dress shopping wasn’t at the forefront of her mind right now. She was still shaken by the news of her mother’s debts, and frustrated that she couldn’t offer her mother much financial help. She couldn’t even get James to back off of Yolanda. She knew what his terms were to get him to do that, and there was no way she was going back to him. No way in hell!
Cynthia, Dawn, and Stephanie had all agreed to pool their funds to provide a safety net for Yolanda for a while, at least until Mr. Widower-Two-Towns-Over turned out to be the meal ticket their mother believed him to be. But they all agreed that there was no way they could afford to pay for the mansion if the situation became much worse. They would have to put up for sale their childhood home.
Lauren was angry and frustrated. She wished she wasn’t so broke and so powerless. There was no way she would ever go back to her old life, those gold-digging ways, but there were times like these that definitely tested her resolve. What she wouldn’t give for a magic money wand to make all the bad things like bill collectors and men like James go away.
“Would you like more champagne, ma’am?” one of the salesgirls asked as she held a silver tray near Lauren’s elbow, snapping her from her thoughts.
“No, thanks.” Lauren adjusted in her chair. She half-heartedly held up her half-full glass. “I’m still good.”
The salesgirl nodded politely. She then walked across the dressing room and disappeared behind a sliding glass door that led back to the store floor.
“So what do you think, Laurie?” Stephanie smoothed the dress bodice with the palms of her hands. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”
Lauren tilted her head and squinted at her sister. “It’s nice.”
“Nice?” Stephanie challenged as she stared at herself again.
“It’s more than ‘nice.’ A thousand dollars gets you nice. Six thousand gets you gorgeous.”
“How much a dress costs doesn’t change how it looks, Steph.”
“But knowing how much it costs changes how you wear it, which makes it look better!”
Lauren figured there was no point in arguing with her sister. If Stephanie was bent on the idea that an expensive dress looked better than a cheaper one, Lauren knew that there was nothing she could do to dissuade her. She took a sip from her half-full champagne glass as her sister continued to preen in front of the mirror.
“You can try on your clothes back here, ladies,” said the salesgirl. Her muffled voice came from the other side of the dressing room wall. Suddenly, the sliding glass door opened again, revealing three black women in Capri pants and colorful blouses who looked to be in their early forties.
“This is one of our more private dressing rooms,” the salesgirl informed proudly as she crossed the room with a stack of clothes slung over her arm.
Lauren gave a casual glance toward the three women as they entered. They were laughing and talking to one another, giggling over some joke. Lauren couldn’t recollect their names, but one or two looked familiar. She had probably seen them back in town at the grocery store or somewhere else on Main Street.
She smiled politely at them in greeting before turning back around to look at her sister, who was still standing on the platform.
Stephanie turned and faced the women as they entered. She grinned. “Well, isn’t it a small world? Hello, Mrs. Montgomery! How are you?”
The light-skinned woman in the center of the three, who had blond highlights, stopped talking the instant Stephanie spoke. Lauren assumed she was Mrs. Montgomery.
The two others who stood on both sides of Mrs. Montgomery continued to chatter and giggle until she elbowed one of them and focused her gaze on Stephanie with laserlike intensity. The portly, dark-skinned one beside her followed the woman’s stare. She loudly whispered something into Mrs. Montgomery’s ear, who then nodded. The two other women took in an audible breath and then frowned with disapproval. Now all three women were glaring at Stephanie.
Lauren lowered her champagne glass from her lips. Just what the hell is going on?
“I haven’t . . . I haven’t seen you since the open house . . . you know, on Westlake Drive,” Stephanie said nervously. “How have you been?”
Mrs. Montgomery didn’t respond. Instead she continued to glower at Stephanie, shooting daggers at her with her eyes.
The tension that Lauren had felt only vaguely now grew in the dressing room by tenfold.
“I’m going to put your clothes here, ladies,” the salesgirl said as she hung several dresses and blouses on individual hooks. She seemed oblivious to the growing strain in the room. “I’ll return in a few minutes with your champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Let me know if you need anything, OK?”
She smiled as she walked back across the dressing room, opened the glass doors, stepped through, and silently shut them behind her. Her high heels echoed across the hardwood floor on the other side of the dressing room wall as she walked back toward the store floor.
Lauren had heard the expression “the room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.” That expression came to mind at this moment as her sister stood stiffly like a mannequin in front of the three-way mirror and the three women continued to huddle on the other side of the dressing room, staring Stephanie down. Only Lauren broke her casual pose. She leaned forward in her chair, prepared for anything.
“Can you believe this?” the portly, dark-skinned woman finally uttered with a curl in her lip.
“Sorry, ladies,” the tall one with the glasses said. “My girlfriend told me this was a nice place. But I didn’t know they let just any type of trash in here! If I did, I wouldn’t have come.”
At that, Stephanie snapped out of her trance. She quickly gathered the voluminous fabric of her skirt into her hands and stepped off the platform.
“Well, it was nice seeing you again, Mrs. Montgomery,” Stephanie said with a false airiness. She turned to Lauren. “On second thought, I won’t buy the gown after all.” Stephanie walked back to her dressing room stall. “You ready to go, Laurie?”
“Ready when you are,” Lauren said as she sprang out of her chair.
“Oh, look at her run!” Mrs. Montgomery chided with a biting laugh. “I wonder if she runs as fast when she’s chasing after other people’s husbands!”
“So how were you pla
nning to pay for that dress?” the portly one shouted after Stephanie. “Let me guess. With somebody’s husband’s credit card!”
“Did you like the bracelet? I saw Hank bought it for you from Tiffany’s!”
Lauren followed her sister into the beige stall. She shut the door behind them. “Steph, what the hell is going on?”
“Nothing! Nothing!” Stephanie whispered shrilly in return as she pointed over her shoulder. “Just help me with this zipper so I can get the hell out of this dress and we can get the hell out of here!”
“Did you sleep with one of their husbands?”
“No!” Stephanie’s face twisted with desperation. “Look, I’ll explain it to you later. Just help me out of this damn dress!”
Lauren began to lower the zipper down Stephanie’s back.
“Just to let you know . . . I wasn’t surprised when I found out about you and Hank,” Mrs. Montgomery said on the other side of the stall door. “My Hank’s never been able to keep his hands to himself, especially when low-class hookers like you throw themselves at him! But I guess you just couldn’t help yourself, could you? I heard all about you, Stephanie Gibbons, and your slutty ways! I heard what you’re all about!”
“You know what they say about the Gibbons girls,” one of her friends shouted. “If there’s a man with money around, a Gibbons girl can’t be far behind!”
Her words were followed by an “uh-huh” and sharp laughter.
“Open your wallet and they’ll open their legs!”
“You’re just a bunch of whores! All of you!” Mrs. Montgomery shouted as she slapped her open palm against the door.
Lauren froze. Her heart began to thud wildly in her chest. Her hands began to shake. She turned and glared at the closed stall door.
Stephanie stared at her little sister. “No, Laurie. No! Don’t go out there!”
Lauren undid the door lock.
“Laurie, what are you doing? Don’t go out there! They’re gonna beat the hell out of us!”
Lauren slowly opened the door to meet Mrs. Montgomery’s glare. She tilted her head and leaned against the door frame. She then defiantly crossed her arms over her chest. “What did you just say?”