by Shelly Ellis
“Hey,” a woman wearing yellow stretch pants and covered with a fine layer of sweat had said as Paulette stepped out of the sauna. “Hey, is your name Paulette?”
Paulette had nodded, tightening her towel around her. “Yes, it is.”
“One of the trainers asked me to give you this.” The woman had held out a folded sheet of paper to her.
“One of the trainers?”
The woman had nodded.
Paulette instantly had an idea of who that trainer might be. Her ex, Marques, had cornered her again on the gym floor, this time while she was on the treadmill. She had tried to ignore him, to pretend like she couldn’t hear him over the sound of the music in her headphones but he’d kept talking, getting louder and louder. Finally, her personal trainer, Daniel, had to intervene.
“Bra’,” Daniel had said, clapping Marques on the shoulder. “My client is trying to do her workout. If you could let her do her thing, I’d appreciate it.”
Marques had laughed, nodded, and walked off but not before giving one final look over his shoulder at Paulette. The look had given her the sinking feeling that it wasn’t the last she had heard or seen of Marques.
Then the folded note had shown up and her heart had sunk even further.
“Thanks,” she had murmured to the woman before taking the sheet of paper from her. She’d flipped it open and quickly read it.
So I’m guessing from how shady you’re acting, your new man don’t know about me or our baby, the note read. You’d be smart to stop avoiding me, girl. Meet me at our old spot at 3 p.m.
That was how she now found herself in the old pizzeria in a town just outside of Chesterton. She was nervously waiting for Marques to show up. He was already fifteen minutes late, which she remembered from the old days wasn’t unusual for him. But if the man was going to try to blackmail her, he could at least have the decency to show up on time.
“Ma’am, did you want to order something else?” the heavyset waitress asked with a cocked brow as she stepped toward the table. She dropped her hand to her ample hip. “That’s all you want? A soda?”
Paulette glanced at the plastic-encased menu, squinting under the dim pendant light. Nothing among the listed selections looked remotely appetizing. But the waitress probably lived on her tips and Paulette was taking up valuable, money-making real estate by sitting in one of the booths as opposed to the small bistro tables toward the front of the pizzeria. Paulette didn’t want to sit at one of those tables though. It was too far out in the open, near the windows, raising the chance that someone she might know would see her in here. That someone might wonder why the newly married Paulette Williams was having lunch with a man who wasn’t her husband. Chesterton loved its gossip and she would imagine something like that would travel fast, especially when it involved one of the “Marvelous Murdochs,” as she knew people around town liked to call her family.
No, Paulette would stay in the booth and she would order something—even if it sat on her plate untouched until it got cold.
“Uh, I’ll . . .” She looked up from the menu. “I guess I’ll have some breadsticks and . . . and, uh—”
“We want the medium pepperoni, extra cheese,” Marques suddenly boomed as he walked toward her table.
When she heard his voice, she flinched. He grinned and plopped in the cushioned seat across from her.
“I’ll have a Michelob too,” Marques said, lowering the zipper of his track suit jacket, which had TRAINER written in white, large letters across the front and back. “Don’t bother with the glass, baby. Just bring the bottle.”
“I’ll need to see your license for that,” the waitress said.
“Awww, damn! You trying to card me?” He pulled out his wallet and winked at her. “I know I’m a nice-looking dude, but I didn’t know I looked young too.”
The waitress laughed, examined his license, and handed it back to him. “I’ll be right back with your order—cutie.”
Paulette watched as the waitress walked off. She shook her head in exasperation. Even after all these years, Marques could still work his charm on the ladies. But Paulette knew from experience that it was all smoke and mirrors. He was a liar, a hustler, and a user. Unfortunately, she had discovered all that way too late.
“So,” Marques said, interlocking his fingers and leaning forward so that he stared into her eyes, “I see you showed up.”
“Well, it’s not like you gave me much of a choice,” she answered sullenly, jabbing her straw into her mug.
He chuckled. “That’s because you were trying to act brand new, like you didn’t know a nigga . . . when we both know you know me, Paulette. You know me really damn well.”
She ignored the insinuation in his voice, in his smirk. She gnawed her bottom lip.
“Your husband know I’m the baby daddy? Did you have a boy or a—”
“Just tell me what you want, Marques! Why did you call me here?”
He leaned back in his seat. “I wanted to talk business with you.”
“Business? What business?”
“Well, being a trainer ain’t exactly bringing in the big bucks, if you really wanna know. I’ve been running a few side hustles to bring in some extra money. The clients who wanna go the extra mile, who want to get their body extra tight, come to me because they know I can get them the goods. I can do what no other trainer at that damn gym can do. I can take them from a couch potato to Arnold Schwarzenegger. I call it the Marques Effect.”
To illustrate, he reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. On the laminated cardboard, she saw the words, The Marques Effect. Go from fat to phat! RESULTS GUARANTEED.
“Results guaranteed, huh?” She squinted at him in disbelief. “I don’t see how you could do that without waving a magic wand. Unless you’re selling them steroids in addition to your training,” she said, using air quotes.
“Performance enhancement supplements,” he answered tightly, narrowing his dark eyes. “And it’s legit.”
“Yeah, I bet,” she muttered, pushing her drink aside.
This wasn’t the first time Marques had sold drugs. When they were teenagers, Marques had sold weed—mostly to college students. It was part of the bad-boy image that she had found so appealing back then, but not anymore.
“Okay, so you said you wanted to talk business. So what are you asking?”
“I want you to invest in my company. Invest in the Marques Effect. I need twenty thousand to—”
“Twenty thousand?” she choked. “Twenty thousand dollars?”
Once a user, always a user, but Marques’s expectations of her had definitely increased over the years.
“I don’t mean pesos, baby! Don’t act so shocked. We both know that twenty grand is chump change to a ballin’ girl like you, but for a dude like me who got to work every day—it ain’t!”
She was still in shock and shaking her head as he spoke. Twenty thousand dollars? Is he serious?
“Look, the supplements I get ain’t cheap, and I don’t always have a steady flow of cash to keep them coming. I need the money or my supplier is gonna cut me off. I already owe him.”
“You’re . . . you’re asking me for drug money?” she whispered.
“No, I’m asking you for a business investment! You’ll make your money back . . . eventually.” He shrugged. “Hey, you ain’t got to do it, but you best believe I’m gonna make sure that husband of yours knows all about us, that the child he’s raising is mine and—”
“There is no child,” she finally blurted out. “I didn’t have the baby!”
Marques cocked an eyebrow. “You had an abortion?” He sighed. “Damn, I never would have guessed you were that type.”
“What type? The type who didn’t want to get disowned and kicked out of her home?” she asked angrily. “The type that didn’t want to have to raise a baby alone at seventeen because you refused to believe the child was yours? Is that the type you’re referring to?”
“Whatever, man! Don’
t try to turn this shit around on me. Your body, your choice, right? I ain’t have nothin’ to do with it!”
Paulette’s lips tightened just as Marques started to smile again.
“I saw your husband’s picture in the paper. It was an old one from your engagement. He looks like a pretty uptight dude. How he gonna feel about you and me? How he gonna feel about you killing our baby?”
Tears started to well in Paulette’s eyes. For years, she had pushed aside the thought that she had killed her baby by having an abortion. She had rationalized it, explained to herself that her choices had been limited and raising a child alone as a teenager without her parents’ support, wouldn’t have done the baby any favors. She’d had no choice. She had done the noble and proper thing. But now it didn’t seem so noble and proper anymore, and she doubted Antonio would see it that way either. Their new marriage seemed to be hanging on by a thread as it was. Something like this could make that thread snap.
“When do you . . .” Paulette sniffed and blinked back her tears. She’d be damned if she cried in front of someone like Marques. She loudly cleared her throat. “When do you need your money?”
“By the end of next week. And make it cash, no checks or money orders. That shit can’t be traceable.”
“All right! Here’s your beer and breadsticks,” said their waitress, walking toward the table with a tray. She set the bottle in front of Marques and the breadsticks basket in between them. “Your pizza will be out in a few minutes.”
“I’m not hungry,” Paulette mumbled, grabbing her purse and sliding out of the booth.
Marques rubbed his hands together eagerly. “More for me then!”
Feeling faint and lightheaded, Paulette shakily rose to her feet and ran toward the pizzeria door.
Chapter 13
LEILA
“Well, that was, um . . . nice,” Leila said minutes after she pulled out of the apartment building parking lot. She glanced at her mother, who sat in the passenger seat beside her. “Wasn’t it nice, Mama?”
A pained expression crossed the older woman’s face. She fidgeted in her seat, not meeting Leila’s eyes. “I suppose,” Diane mumbled. “Though it did need a little work, Lee.”
“It smelled like cat pee-pee!” Isabel suddenly piped up from the backseat.
Okay, maybe they have a point, Leila thought grudgingly. Perhaps the apartment at Buena Vista Terrace wasn’t exactly what she had envisioned when she’d read the ad for a “spacious three bedroom, one bath with eat-in kitchen and scenic panoramic views.” Not only had it looked dingy and smelled funky, but the bedrooms also were so tiny that the jail cells at the Chesterton Sheriff’s Office probably had more square footage. She wasn’t sure how that was supposed to be an eat-in kitchen when it seemed impossible for more than one person to enjoy a meal at the same time in the kitchen without bumping elbows. And she didn’t think anyone could consider windows facing a parking lot and brick wall “scenic panoramic views.”
But even with those downsides, Leila was still willing to consider the apartment and any other viable alternatives for a place to live if the price and location were right—short of moving back to California to live with Brad again. Her little family was coming down to the wire, drawing closer and closer to Diane’s foreclosure date. They were running out of options.
Only a few days ago, Leila had come home from work to find deputies escorting their neighbors, Melanie and Randy Tillman, off their foreclosed property. A notice was taped to the Tillmans’ door. Melanie had been in tears as deputies helped her husband carry what he could out of their house and load it into the back of his Ford pickup truck. A few neighbors had tried to help with the move. The rest had stood, gawking, as they watched the scene unfold, inwardly cringing at the idea that one day they could be in the Tillmans’ shoes. Leila had resolved that evening that it was time to get serious about finding a new place to live. She refused to stand by as deputies set her mother’s treasured curio cabinet on the front lawn, as they carried out Isabel’s stuffed toys in garbage bags.
“It wasn’t that bad, Izzy,” Leila argued as she drove. “Right, Mama?” She nodded in agreement with herself when her mother didn’t respond. “Yep, not bad at all! A little paint, nice drapes, and some cleaning and it could work. It could be really nice!”
“If you think so, baby,” Diane said.
“I don’t think so, Mama. I know so!” Leila smiled, even though the bleakness inside her reflected the expressions on the faces of both her mother and her daughter. “Come on, we could make it work if we had to! Plus, it would only be temporary. One year . . . maybe two years, tops, until we got back on our feet.”
“Maybe I’ll just get used to the smell of cat pee-pee,” Isabel muttered as Leila made the turn to pull onto her mother’s block.
“You won’t have to get used to it. Pine-Sol will take care of it,” Leila insisted.
“Who in the world is that?” Diane exclaimed, pointing at a car that was parked near the curb in front of their house.
Leila’s smile disappeared. Her stomach lurched as she slowed her hatchback to a stop.
She instantly recognized the black Lincoln Town Car a few feet in front of her and watched in dismay as the driver stepped out and walked to the rear of the vehicle.
“It’s the president, Grandma! It’s the president!” Isabel shouted gleefully as she bounced up and down in the backseat and clapped her hands.
“It’s not the president,” Leila said as the driver opened the Lincoln Town Car’s back door. Her hold on the steering wheel tightened. “It’s Evan.”
She hadn’t seen or spoken to him since his infamous offer almost a week ago and she was still furious. She had come to him for help, had been willing to humble herself for the sake of her family, and what had he done in return? He had treated her like some common hooker! He had offered a quid pro quo of money and a favor in exchange for sex. For some insane reason, he had expected her to take him up on his absurd offer, but Evan had been sorely mistaken!
“Or had he?” the voice in her head asked. The truth was, in her weaker moments, Leila had considered his offer with more seriousness than she would have liked to admit. Evan was right about at least one thing: Despite how much she now detested him, she had felt a passion erupt between them when they kissed. It had been burning hot and had left her wanting more. The sex might even be pleasurable if she could divorce her emotions from the whole situation and let her body take the lead, but she wasn’t made that way.
There were many things she was willing to do to clean up the mess Brad had created. There were many ways she had been willing to humble herself, but prostitution wasn’t one of them. Evan may have changed a lot over the years, but she hadn’t. Leila Hawkins wasn’t that type of girl.
“Evan?” her mother asked, now wide eyed. They all watched as Evan stepped out of his car, adjusted his suit jacket, and walked toward the hatchback. “What is he doing here? You think he finally came to apologize?”
“I doubt it,” Leila muttered. She hadn’t told her mother about her visit to Evan’s office or his “business proposal.” If she had, she knew her mother would have stomped her way to Murdoch Conglomerated headquarters, ready to kick Evan’s ass. “He probably wants to talk about something else.”
Her mother frowned. “What else?”
“Nothing. Please just take Isabel inside the house with you. I need to talk to Evan alone.”
Her mother’s frown deepened. She turned and fixed her daughter with a questioning look but quickly deciphered from the expression on Leila’s face that it was a bad time to ask any more questions. She nodded. “All right. Come on, Izzy. Help Grandma start dinner.”
They all climbed out of the car. Leila angrily strode toward Evan with Diane and Isabel trailing behind her.
“Hi, Miss White,” Evan said with a wave to Leila’s mother as she passed him. The older woman had beelined for the walkway leading to the house.
Diane paused and briefly nodded. “He
llo, Evan. Long time, no see.” She then placed her hands on Isabel’s shoulders, steering the little girl back toward their bungalow. “Come on, Izzy.”
“You must be Isabel,” Evan suddenly said, dropping to one knee on the front lawn. He knelt in front of Leila’s daughter, dirtying what Leila could only surmise was an eight-hundred to a thousand-dollar suit. He held out his hand for a shake. “I’m Evan Murdoch. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
The little girl stared down at his hand. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”
Evan pulled his hand back and nodded. “You’re right. You shouldn’t do that, but I’m not a stranger.” He glanced up at Leila, who was now glaring at him with her arms crossed over her chest. “I’m . . . well, I used to be close friends with your mother. We’ve known each other since we were about your age.”
“Friends with Mommy?” Isabel looked up at her mother, turned back to Evan, and stared at him doubtfully. “I know all my mommy’s friends. Why haven’t I seen you before?”
“Izzy,” Diane began, looking embarrassed, “what did I tell you about being r—”
“It’s okay, Miss White,” Evan said as he held up his hand, silencing Diane. “Izzy, you haven’t heard of me because. . . well, because of many reasons, most of which were my fault. But”—he looked up at Leila again, meeting her gaze—“maybe I can change that today.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Rightly sensing that something intense and long overdue was going on, Diane loudly cleared her throat. “Let’s go, Izzy.” She nodded to Evan again. “It was nice seeing you, Evan.” She then quickly walked toward the house, holding Isabel firmly in front of her despite the fact that the little girl was dragging her feet and peering over her shoulder at Evan and Leila the entire way.
Leila watched her mother and daughter until the front door closed behind them. When it did, she whipped around and faced Evan.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped.
He slowly rose to his feet. “I wanted to talk to you.”