“Umm, hello? Michelle?”
A woman? It took me a second to place her voice. “Lania? Hey, I’m sorry I . . . I had the phone on mute.” I wasn’t in the mood for her cat-and-mouse bullshit right this second, especially not with Ris asleep right here, liable to wake up and ask a million questions.
“So, I honestly don’t do this that often and I am in understanding with your situation, but I’d really like to be seeing you again. Soon if that is possible.”
I had to shake my head yet again at her “Frannish” but that low, sultry voice of hers, it was like warm spiced caramel, and I had an instantaneous flashback of what it sounded like when she . . .
I popped that thought bubble before it could float any higher. I had too much going on to entertain this type of bullshit right now. Ris adjusted her head on my shoulder in her sleep and I stiffened.
“Lania, I can’t. I’m sorry about what happened tonight too, but I just can’t. I’ve gotta go okay?” I didn’t even wait for her to respond. Suddenly I realized that I’d just hung up on one of Maxim’s top one hundred. Actually I think she was numbered as the twenty-eighth most beautiful woman in the world. I exhaled loudly. My neck was starting to hurt. I needed to be as rational and real about this situation as possible and with the way things were going, Rasheed was probably going to try to kill me. The key word was try, because there was no way I was giving up my life without a damn good fight. That muthafucka had another thing coming if he thought otherwise.
What’s Mine Is Yours And What’s Yours Is Still Yours
41
Boy oh boy. I almost went slam the fuck off and gave away the fact that my ass wasn’t for real drunk sleeping on Michelle’s shoulder. I’d adjusted my head so I could hear her conversation better. The first one was quick and weird. I couldn’t really hear it that well but based on the way she tensed up it wasn’t good news. But the second one, whew, I almost nodded my head right into her lap because I was straining so hard to hear. I just knew something was up with that pretty-ass model Frenchy bitch mispronouncing-shit-for-no-damn-reason streetwalking ho. Oh, I bet Chelle ain’t even know all that shit. Keyshawn was on his phone and Keisha had started talkin’ all low to Chanel when they left sayin’ some shit ’bout Lania needin’ her to escort some nigga somewhere so they needed to ditch our party. An’ here I was kissin’ her ass thinkin’ she on some top model shit and she over here running hoes.
Lania’s ass had just hopped up too quick to help out when Michelle needed to go piss at the club. An’ when Chanel and Keisha had the nerve to ask if I was okay with them going together, it took everything in my power to keep me at the table for as long as I sat there. It took a helluva lot more for me to embarrass myself and stick my damn finger down my throat when Chelle wasn’t paying attention so I could throw up. My ass wasn’t gonna be sick. I just needed an excuse to whoop that bitch’s ass, and being drunk just seemed like a good enough’a one to me, shit.
My Spidey-muthafuckin’-sense was already on ten; I ain’t need Tweedledee and Tweedledum-ass pointin’ shit out like my ass stupid. I didn’t know if Michelle did or didn’t do anything up in that damn bathroom, but just in case, I got my ass whoopin’ in just for her or that bitch even thinkin’ ’bout doin’ that shit. Point blank, that’s all the fuck it took. Little Ms. Lania’s ass was on my muthafuckin’ radar. Period.
I could feel the limo roll to a stop. Michelle kissed me on my forehead and I blinked a few times, trying to adjust my eyes since they’d been closed the entire ride.
“Hey, you lush, we’re home.” She gave me one of her fake-ass “I’m trying to act like nothing’s wrong” smiles. It was damn obvious she was worried about something. I just hoped she wasn’t thinking about that bitch.
“Is somethin’ wrong, bae?” I acted like I was still a little hazy from all the liquor, but I was super alert, watching everything.
“Nothin’ baby. I’m jus’ tired, it’s close to four in the morning.”
We climbed out of the car and made our way up to the darkened house, both of us trying to look normal as fuck while secretly eyeballing every tree, shadow, and bush. Most of the main lights were off in the house, but the sitter had left the foyer lit. She was sitting in the living room, doing some shit with these long-ass needles. The needles clinked together as she dropped them into her little nanny knapsack and walked over to us.
“Hello, misses.” She always called us that like we weren’t some damn grown-ass women, always talkin’ in her polite little field mouse voice. I bet she had a gazillion cats at home an’ shit, or a million of those little white china baby dolls and she be talkin’ to ’em and shit like they real kids.
“A visitor came by not long after you left. As instructed I did not approach nor open the door. The children are upstairs in bed. They are very well behaved and beautiful little ones. Feel free to reserve my services anytime.”
I didn’t hear a damn thing after the word “visitor.” Who in the hell came by the house?
You would’ve thought the two of us were wanted fugitives the way we suddenly looked at each other. Both of us asked the same question in our heads without needing to speak it out loud in front of this person who didn’t need to know our business.
“Darla, I’ll see you out. Thank you so, so much for your time this evening.” Michelle took over and walked Darla toward the front door. She locked and bolted the double front doors, set the alarm, and together we went down the hall into the study that we never used.
We walked up to the oversized mahogany desk in the center. Michelle plopped down in the leather seat in front of the touchscreen HP and I sat in her lap, since it was the only place to sit.
“You ever even learn how to use that damn camera system?” I was being a smartass on purpose. Since the day it was installed I’d never figured out how to use it and I sure as hell wasn’t sure if she had.
“The man said it’s twenty-four hours and backed up to a main server, all we have to do is enter the password and we can view the footage.”
I wasn’t sure why I never thought of it before. The cameras were all some state-of-the-art bullshit, teeny as hell and hidden around the outside of the house. We had one at the front door, one overlooking the garage, and I was pretty sure there was another that looked out over the back toward the pool.
“So why don’t you just use the li’l touchscreen pad things that’s all over the house?”
We had one in every damn room. They looked like mini TVs on the wall beside the light switches and they controlled damn near everything. You could dim the lights, turn the music on or off in each room, and, duh, look outside using the cameras.
“Because, Ris, those cameras are real time, we need to access shit that’s already passed. So we need to go back a few hours. After a week the files are archived so we can’t access them.” She sounded irritated. There was no reason for her to talk to me in such a know-it-all tone.
“Well, damn. You ain’t gotta snap at my ass. I was jus’ askin’.” Shit, I’ll keep my suggestions to myself. She sure did know a lot about all of this, and my ass just felt more and more alienated as she put in her password and pulled up her site, more shit I was oblivious to. It was a wonder she didn’t spy on me when I was home with the kids.
She scrolled her finger along the screen and the footage zoomed forward through the day, and I watched us leave in the limo, and a few minutes later a white flower delivery van pulled up, and we watched as a figure got out and walked up to the house with what had to be the largest bouquet of lilies in history. The sun was setting and it was shadowy, so we honestly couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Damn, why hadn’t Darla turned on the front light? We might have been able to see something if she had. He or she had on a huge gardening hat and the lilies completely blocked the side view of their face so watching the video any further was pointless. Michelle groaned and touched stop on the screen.
“What? It’s just a damn florist. Probably from one of your fuckin’ side hoe
s.” Jealousy seared through me in an instant, flashed with a mixture of anger and pain. It wasn’t anyone sendin’ me flowers, that was for damn sure. Climbing off her lap I started to make my way upstairs, intent on thinking my way out of this no-win situation with her lying ass. The thought of being close to her and thinking that once again Rasheed or Lania or whoever the fuck else was touching her or sharing her with me was tearing me up inside.
“Larissa. It doesn’t bother you that this florist had on a sun hat and was trying to deliver flowers damn near in the middle of the night? Every house out here has security cameras somewhere. You don’t think whoever it was wasn’t trying to hide their face on purpose?”
Her words fell on deaf ears. She was pleading her case, trying to cover up her lover’s tracks because the flowers probably should’ve gone to her fuckin’ office and not to our damn house.
“And they just happened to know you love lilies. Most deliveries for most normal companies do stop at nine, Michelle.” I couldn’t hide the smirk on my face. Oooh, my ass was heated. I stormed out to the study, intent on rolling me a fat one and putting some clouds up in the air because this bitch done straight chased away all of the buzz I had. She had some nerve having niggas sending flowers and shit up here, and then on top of that Lania’s ass trying to get at her with me right there just feet away.
I stomped into the garage, the humidity immediately making me break out into a sweat, pissing me off even further. I looked at the layer of dust gathering on my silver Jag and my candy-red Mercedes coupe, both gifts from Michelle. I needed my own got-damn car that I paid for. Not something that was given to me like I was a spoiled brat or someone’s child who needed an allowance and permission to do things. At one point in time I thought this was the life I wanted. To have someone just take care of me and just give. She gave me clothes, gave me money. Michelle gave me everything I had. I realized now that the problem with someone doing all the damn giving is that at any moment they could take it all back. I needed to do something, and I needed to do it fast. If our marriage wasn’t legal in Florida and she wanted me gone or if I decided I wanted to leave.
The thought of me putting up with so much and walking away with absolutely nothing made my stomach twist into knots. The main reason Michelle even had the nerve to have half of what she had was because of me and did she ever truly show me any appreciation? Fuck no. I helped pull her up from her knees and now she wanted to just walk away. We only had one solid rule between the two of us and to this day as far as I knew neither of us had ever broken it. We’d both sworn to never lock our phones and to respect each other’s privacy by not going through each other’s shit. Pacing in the garage, I couldn’t help feeling like a caged animal. Like one of those damn dwarf leopards I’d seen in Trey’s zoo magazines. Yup, my ass was a damn endangered ocelot and my habitat, my cubs, and everything else was on the verge of being wiped out if I didn’t start fighting. My lifestyle, my way of living, was in jeopardy and so was Lataya’s. My mind was made up.
Frenemies
42
I waited until Michelle’s ass was at work before I called her, and I prayed that this bitch would actually be cool and not turn around and tell Michelle about our conversation.
“Larissa? Who? Oh, oh I remember your ass. Little Jackie Chan.” She sounded like her ass was half asleep when she’d answered the phone.
“Oh, yeah, ’bout that. I’m so sorry I was hammered. I hope you can forgive me.”
“It is fine. We’ve all been there. No harm, no foul. What is it you’re wanting?” She yawned loud as hell in my ear. Well, damn, she sure isn’t the sugar-coatin’ type.
“So um, Lania, I heard you be on some shit, an’ I need to earn some extra money. Fast.” I hadn’t slept one bit all damn night thinking about what I would say, and was nervous as fuck about finally callin’ her, but decided to go ahead an’ go through with it.
“And what exactly is this you think you have heard?”
Well, shit, here goes nothin’, I thought. Either I’d heard wrong or I’d heard right.
“I want to be an escort, no sex though. Just go on a few dates, look pretty or whatever, an’ then bring my ass home. That’s it. I heard you could set that up.” I held my breath.
“Ahhh. I see, and what does your wife say about this?”
“She don’t know and ain’t never gonna know.”
“Okay. As far as you know I am the alpha, I am the queen of this shit. You want to run with the wolves—you must earn your place in the pack. You’re new so no, you won’t get first pick or top choice. You have to work your way up.”
“So what does that mean, what do I need to do?”
“You won’t make as much, the girls who make the most do . . . how should I say . . . . um, favors, but you aren’t bad looking so I can work with you. Fix yourself up, text me a picture, full body. I have a client who needs a girl for an event tonight at ten. If you are up to standard, a car will pick you up and drop you off when it’s over. One of my men will follow you all evening.”
“So when you say ‘special favors,’ you mean what?” My hands were gettin’ sweaty at the excitement an’ possibility of doing something new, dangerous.
“I mean, I pay you to go on a date, they’ll offer you extra for extra shit. I warn you now, sometimes clients can get a bit testy, especially if they drink or do too much drugs. Don’t drink or do anything with them so you don’t make any kind of decisions you’ll regret. You earn three thou, my cut a thousand of that.”
Damn. Three grand to sit and look cute. Fuck yes. “Abso-fuckin-lutely. I’ll send you a pic in a minute. Thank you, Lania.”
I rushed off the phone to get myself sexified. I threw on a red lacy corset that tied up the sides. I glued on some dramatic strip lashes and brushed on a little light makeup. I stood around in the bathroom and played around with the camera on my phone until I had a few pictures I was happy with. I sent them to Lania and waited anxiously for her to let me know if my ass was gonna be able to escort.
Very very nice. Be ready at 9:15 send me your address. btw dress for a play.
That was the text I got back not more than ten minutes later. Damn, what the fuck do I have that I can wear to a play, and how the fuck am I gonna get around Michelle? The answer came to me when I was taking my shower.
Michelle got home at her usual time and I ain’t feel like wearing a damn thing she’d bought me. Until I’d earned some money and bought myself some of my own shit, I’d prefer to just fuckin’ walk around naked. Fuck it.
I crushed up some valiums that were left over from the time she hurt her back rearranging the living room furniture. Them things always knocked her slam the fuck out. Whenever she got home from work she’d usually go straight to the fridge and get a glass of tea. That was her routine. Well, I’d dumped all the tea outta the pitcher except for like half a glass, and mixed in the crushed pills, adding some extra sugar so it wouldn’t taste bitter.
“You been home all day, drank all the damn tea, and didn’t think to make any more, Larissa?” were the first words she said when she got home from work. I just looked at her ass and raised my eyebrow.
“So you’re still doing that no-talking shit I see. Okay. Okay. Well, I’m not making any more. Y’all can all drink water tomorrow for all I care. “
I watched her ass pour that last little bit of tea into a glass, thinking, Yup, drink up, drink up, sweetie. Gigglin’ to myself, I just carried my ass on upstairs to start getting ready for my night.
* * *
I waited out front, smoking some of the shit Shanice had sent me to help calm my nerves. At nine fifteen two black Lincoln Town Cars pulled up into our driveway and Michelle was on the couch, unconscious, just like I knew she’d be. I tiptoed out the front door, wearing one of her wack-ass black skirts and a red button-down Michael Kors top. I couldn’t resist throwing on a pair of matching red pumps; conservative was not a word in my vocabulary. I was going to be escorting Darnell Wiggs, Jr. to see Le . . .
Miser . . . Misera . . . Fuck, I couldn’t pronounce that shit. It was some kinda French play. All I knew was I didn’t know this actor and I didn’t know the damn play and they both sounded boring as hell. The three Gs I’d get at the end of the night was the only thing exciting me about the whole damn evening.
When we pulled up in front of the theatre my ass was immediately turned off by all the old, rigid, stuffy-collared folk in suits and ties walking toward the place. Darnell walked up to my car and my frowned disappeared.
“Well, hello to you, gorgeous. I’ma have to tell Ms. Lania she done sent me a million-dolla one this time.” He grabbed my hand and helped me out of the car. I smiled, not sure what to say back since I ain’t never did this shit before. He extended his arm, and after glancing around nervously I’d seen that some of the other women had their hands on the inside of the guys’ arms, so I placed my hand on the inside of his.
“How are you doin’, honey?”
I almost tripped over my own damn feet and fell on my face. Out of all the pet names, he couldn’t have called me sweetie or baby? I smiled at him weakly, trying to push all thoughts of Rasheed and Michelle’s drama out of my head.
“I’m good. Thanks.”
We walked into the darkened theatre and up to the top. He’d gotten us these special box seats.
I was half asleep halfway through the play when Darnell leaned over, his breath smelling like he’d gone in on a plate of chitlins with extra shit, all up against the side of my face. I did my best not to turn away completely.
Baby Momma Saga Page 23