“If that’s the case, then why is she the one coming to you for help? I mean, unless it was some weird kind of an adoption, she shouldn’t even be in the picture.” William opened the door and handed the valet the key to his car. Lawrence got out and closed his door. They walked to the restaurant door and stepped in.
“Your usual spot?” the hostess asked.
Lawrence smiled. “Please.” The two men followed her to his booth where they usually sat off the beaten path. “Thank you,” Lawrence said to her. She nodded to him with a smile.
“She likes you,” William whispered as he glanced at the redhead who had just seated them as he slid into the booth seat across from Lawrence. “She’s never that nice to me when I come in by myself.”
“Maybe she just knows how to take care of politicians and the clientele that takes care of them.”
“Maybe,” William said. “Okay, now back to that problem at hand. Now that I know what I’m dealing with, I’ll get my folks on it, checking into things with Miss Booker, and see what all we can turn up.”
“How long will it take?” Lawrence asked. “She’s not giving me a lot of time. She says the child is dying and we don’t have much time to lose.”
“You know my people move fast.” William pulled out his cell phone and began texting. He laid the phone down on the table. “Already working on it,” he said with a smile. “Already working on it. All right, Miss Gabrielle Mercedes Booker, let’s see what you got.”
“Are you ready to order, or do you need a few more minutes?” the waitress asked.
“Oh, I’m ready!” William said, rubbing his hands together and looking over at Lawrence, who also nodded he was ready as well. They ordered and the waitress left.
“What am I going to do?” Lawrence said. “What if this goes public?”
“Just chill out. Let the master do his work. My folks are on this. We’ll find out all about this woman as well as her claims. If there’s no truth to what she’s saying, we’ll bust her and shut her down before you can say, ‘Next stop is the U.S. House of Representatives.’ ”
“And if there is some truth?”
“Well, in my years of doing this, I’ve yet to find a person who didn’t have their own Achilles’ heel. All I know is that I’m going to do whatever it takes to ensure she doesn’t mess up all of our hard work on this campaign.”
“As well as my marriage . . . and my family,” Lawrence said.
“Yeah. Don’t worry; we’ll do what we need to do to protect your career, your marriage, and your family.”
Lawrence nodded. “Yeah. Deidra’s not going to buy too many more times that these women are just lying on me. She’s not a fool now, not by any means.”
“Deidra loves you. She knows the game out there. She knows how women are. You don’t have to worry about her, that’s even if she ever hears about this. Which, if I’m as good as I think I am, she won’t.”
Lawrence nodded and took a few swallows of water. He set the glass back on the table. “You’re a really good friend. You and I have been through a lot.”
“Yes, we have,” William said. “And we’re not through with going through yet, so don’t go getting all sentimental on me.”
William’s phone made a ringtone sound. He picked it up and looked at it. The waitress came with their food and began placing their plates on the table.
“Looky, looky,” William said with a grin as he read what was on the screen of his phone. “Now that didn’t take long at all!”
“Do you need anything else?” The waitress looked from one to the other.
“I’m good,” Lawrence said.
“Steak sauce, please. Heinz Fifty-seven.” William held his phone in his hand as he spoke. “I like mine a little sweet and saucy, not too vinegary, although I can handle a little bite.”
The waitress turned her nose up slightly at William. He released a small giggle.
Lawrence wasn’t sure if William was laughing at what he’d just said to the waitress or what he was reading on his phone’s screen.
The waitress left.
“Good news?” Lawrence asked.
“Here you are,” the waitress said, setting the bottle down in between the both of them. “Anything else?”
“No, I think I have everything I need right about now,” William said, still gazing at the screen.
“Thank you,” Lawrence said to the waitress, who left after a quick nod and a smile at him. Lawrence bowed his head and said a quick prayer of grace over his food. He looked at William, who was still grinning. “So, are you going to share or what?”
William set the phone back down on the table and smiled as he bowed his head all of two seconds, then began cutting into his T-bone steak. He put a piece of steak in his mouth. “Gabrielle Mercedes Booker, who now legally goes by the name of Gabrielle Mercedes, works at that church with that pastor named George Landris. You remember Pastor George Landris, don’t you? He’s the one I told you blew me off in that little deal I was trying to broker with him and his church earlier this year. You know Mr. High and Mighty who apparently thought he was too good to get down in the ditch with us—”
“Okay, so she works at a church with a pastor you still obviously have beef with.”
“We have beef with,” William said. “We. Whatever I do in the name of you and your office is for us as an organization.”
“Yeah. And us as an organization are now in a mess with that other preacher, who has, among other things, IRS problems and is on schedule to be prosecuted, potentially implicating us in some of his mess along the way.”
“I told you not to worry about that,” William said. “I’m good at what I do. And I know how to cover my tracks. Rev. Marshall Walker may go down, but you don’t have to worry about us going down with him.”
“Is that why you were so happy reading the information that just came in? You think Gabrielle can help with this other situation you’ve been working on?”
“Oh, no.” He put another piece of steak in his mouth and chewed, then took a swallow of his water with lemon. “Gabrielle Mercedes Booker aka Gabrielle Mercedes has just given us something I believe we can deal with her on.”
“And that is?”
“And that is that Gabrielle Mercedes Booker aka Gabrielle Mercedes, reportedly, at least from my sources, was once an exotic dancer . . . or in plainer terms, a stripper who went by the name of Goodness and Mercy.” William smiled.
“Goodness and Mercy?” Lawrence said.
“Yes. Goodness and Mercy. The woman who showed up at your office trying to push you into some kind of a corner has her own past she might not want exposed to the whole world. Especially not on the level you and I can take it. And believe me: I will decimate her. I’ll totally and unsympathetically decimate her. And anyone else who may remotely be important in her life as well, if I have to.” William shook some steak sauce on his steak and placed another piece in his mouth. “This is so good! Just the way I like it: well done, a little sweet and saucy, with a slight bite.”
Lawrence wasn’t sure if William was referring to his steak with the steak sauce or the information he now had on Gabrielle.
Chapter 8
Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that
puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken
also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!
—Habakkuk 2:15
Gabrielle went home, lay across her bed, and cried. She couldn’t believe how badly things had transpired. When she’d gone to Lawrence’s office, she wasn’t quite sure what she would say or how she would bring up what she’d ultimately gone to his office to do.
From the beginning, she never intended for any of this to have happened. Not her getting pregnant, and especially not being with a married man, let alone a married man old enough to be her father.
Lawrence Simmons had been so different the first time she met him. He was so caring and he listened to her. He was Paris’s father—a man that lov
ed, provided for, and protected his little girl. Something she couldn’t help but admire and wish she had in her life; something she honestly had never had. Paris had been nice enough to let her move in with her when she discovered from another friend that Gabrielle had nowhere to stay after her aunt and uncle put her out for no good reason. She and Paris had never even been friends, remotely or otherwise. So she was surprised when Paris approached her about coming to stay at her place until she could get on her feet.
As it turned out, Paris was a bit of a slob when it came to housekeeping. Gabrielle didn’t mind cleaning up after her and all her friends that came over. In fact, it felt like being at home for Gabrielle, since she’d always been the one to clean up after everyone at her aunt Cee-Cee’s house. Paris never included her in the things she did, whether at the apartment or outside of it, which was also fine with Gabrielle, since she didn’t care for all of it anyway. And when Paris was gone (which happened a lot), she had the apartment all to herself. She could twirl around the room and dance at will like no one was watching, which, of course, no one was.
Paris’s father showed up one day when Paris wasn’t there. He knew who she was; he’d met her earlier and checked her out. She’d just finished cooking and offered him something to eat. The two of them had a great time laughing and talking. He then asked her what she wanted to do.
“Excuse me?” Gabrielle had said.
“With your life,” Lawrence said. “What would you like to do? Do you want to go to college? Are you looking for a full-time job? And if so, doing what?”
At first she thought he was telling her she couldn’t stay there, essentially living off him and his daughter. She worked a temp job. The pay wasn’t much and work was inconsistent, but so far it had been enough to cover her share of the expenses.
Lawrence refined his question. “What would you do if you didn’t have to worry about whether you were paid or not?”
That was easy. “Dance,” she said with a huge smile. “I would dance.”
He tried to get her to dance for him, but she wouldn’t. A few days later he just “happened” to stop by again, and again, Paris wasn’t there. This time, he brought Chinese food and two bottles of Moscato d’Asti. She’d never had wine before (she wasn’t of legal age to drink). But the glass he poured for her didn’t taste anything like she thought it would. It was sweet and fruity, so she drank more than she probably should have. But then again, he’d kept refilling her glass.
“Dance for me,” he’d said again. “Let me see you dance. Come on. Do what you love.”
So she danced. And she was like the wind. Dancing was her place of refuge. It was where she could always go and be completely free.
That night was the first time she’d ever been with a man. And he had been so wonderful after it was over. So when he showed up the next time (again when Paris wasn’t there), she was already falling for him. And again, they slept together. Three times they were together, and apparently one of those times produced a baby.
She thought when she told him that she was pregnant he would step up and do the right thing. That’s when she saw a totally different man. A man that was not all that loving or caring. He was mean and he said some horrible things to her. He indicated that he thought she was someone who did nothing but sleep around with whatever man that came along.
But she wasn’t like that. She hadn’t cared about men and dating at the time. Well, maybe there had been this one guy at school she’d liked, but that never really went anywhere. She’d cared only about dancing and trying to figure out how she could do what she loved for the rest of her life. She missed Miss Crowe so much, even more right then. Gabrielle had no one she could talk to, no one to confide in, no one who could guide her in the right direction. She was all alone.
She definitely couldn’t talk to Paris about this. Gabrielle thought she’d have time to sort everything out. But Paris changed on her and told her she had to leave. She didn’t even know what she’d done to make Paris become so upset with her all of a sudden. Gabrielle was pretty sure that Paris’s father hadn’t told her about the two of them. Lawrence had all but let her know that he didn’t want the baby she was carrying, even if it was his, which he maintained that it wasn’t. He’d given her money to “take care of it” and some extra to, what she now believed, make her completely go away. Immediately after Paris told her to get out, she tried to call him a few times, hoping he might drive her someplace. But he wouldn’t take and didn’t return her call.
It was never her intent for Lawrence to know she hadn’t aborted the baby as he’d instructed . . . had given her money to do. Instead, someone she barely knew saw her, picked her up off the streets, invited her to stay at his home, giving her time to think. Shortly, she found her way to a place for soon-to-be mothers in predicaments.
And had everything gone as planned, she would have given the baby up for adoption (which she had) and the baby would have grown up in a good and loving home with good and loving parents and had a great life. From all she could tell from these past months of talking to Jessica Noble (the woman who adopted her baby girl) over the phone, the little girl was indeed loved. But the adoption should have been the end of it. Unless and until, of course, the child had wanted to find her biological mother and sought her out. Which in that case, her baby girl would be eighteen and an adult.
But things weren’t going as planned, not at all. The eight-year-old was in life-threatening danger and time had almost run out. Her doctors weren’t optimistic that she would even make it to see her ninth birthday on March thirtieth unless a matching donor was found and soon.
A bone marrow transplant seemed easy enough, at least from the donor’s standpoint. You found someone to match. Marrow was taken from the donor using a special needle under general anesthesia (the hip bones were said to be rich in marrow stem cells) and the donor was on his or her way. The one who went through the most was the one receiving the transplant. So much advance preparation and all of the things that had to be done afterward. But if the receiving body didn’t reject the transplanted cells taken from the spongy tissue found inside of the bone, in a matter of four to six months, the patient was completely healed. That sounded simple enough.
But Gabrielle had quickly learned that black folks weren’t so hot on being donors, even when they don’t have to be dead to do it. She’d been tested, but found not to be a good match. That’s why she’d gone to find Lawrence. He was Jasmine’s biological father, and maybe he would be a good match. And if not him, she’d been told that siblings had an even greater potential of being the best match of all. Lawrence had three children (that she knew of). She didn’t really want to involve his children, but if that was the only option left besides merely allowing the child to die without them doing everything they could to save her, she was willing to go there.
Gabrielle picked up the phone to call Zachary. She was so upset with herself at how things had gone today. She sat there with the dead cordless receiver in her hand as she reflected on how all of this had honestly begun in the first place.
She was living with her aunt and uncle because her father had killed her mother and she had nowhere else to go. She hadn’t had a say-so about where she would live at the age of close to four. Her uncle had come on to her several times after she turned seventeen, even as much as coming into her room when everyone else was in bed asleep, attempting to kiss her and touch her in his own sly way. After he came on more forcibly, she’d told her aunt Cee-Cee. Nothing was done. When it happened again, she told her again. The next thing she knew, her aunt was telling her that as soon as she graduated from high school and turned eighteen (which would be in a few months) that she would have to find someplace else to live because she couldn’t stay there. Her aunt acted like what happened to her had been her fault, her doing, instead of her scumbag husband’s.
And as though things couldn’t have been worse already, during that same time, Miss Esther Crowe (the only person in the world who had ever shown h
er love, kindness, and compassion, and would most certainly have opened her door to her if she had needed a place of refuge) had gone to see about her relatives up north. Miss Crowe was in an accident and she never returned to Alabama. There was no one to tell Gabrielle what had happened with her. And for the longest, she was certain Miss Crowe was dead.
She met Zachary Wayne Morgan, who turned out to be Dr. Zachary Wayne Morgan or Dr. Z, as many of his patients called him, who turned out to be the nephew of Miss Esther Crowe, who ended up taking her to see the woman who had made such a gigantic difference in her life. Gabrielle began to cry.
The phone started to ring, even as she held it, causing her to jump. Looking down at the caller ID, she started smiling.
“Hi there,” she said, quickly stifling her sniffles so he couldn’t hear them.
“What’cha doing?”
“Thinking.”
“Thinking? About what?”
Gabrielle smiled. “You, for one.”
“Good things, I hope,” Zachary said.
She let out a sigh loud enough she was sure he heard it. “Some.” She sniffled.
“Hey? Why do you sound like you’re crying?” Zachary asked with concern.
“I’m okay.”
“Gabrielle, what’s wrong?” His voice escalated slightly.
“I finally got to see somebody today I’ve been trying to catch up with, and I didn’t act at all in the way that I should have. I didn’t act like a Christian, that’s for sure. I don’t know what happened with me.”
“Who did you see?” Zachary asked.
Gabrielle hesitated for a moment. She hadn’t told Zachary everything just yet. Sure, he knew about the baby she’d given up for adoption. He knew she’d been tested to see if she was possibly a match for the bone marrow transplant. He also knew she hadn’t been a good match and how extremely disappointed, but not deterred, she’d been about the news. He’d asked her about the father of the baby. But she could tell he’d been averse to even go there with her.
Here they were, having agreed to make a go of it as a couple. Leslie Morgan, Zachary’s mother, was not fond of the idea, and that was putting it mildly. Leslie had made that more than clear. But she’d also told Gabrielle it was nothing against her personally. She’d said she really liked Gabrielle as a person. Leslie just felt that Gabrielle had too much other baggage she didn’t want ending up in her doctor son’s closet.
The Other Side of Goodness Page 6