I walked out into the kitchen as Roxie was taking the cake pans out of the ovens. She set the ex-lax layer away from the other two layers so as not to get them mixed up.
“I can’t do it anymore, Roxie.”
She looked up at me. “Do what?”
“This.” I looked down at the cake pans. “This . . . revenge thing. It was really fun at first because I was hurt really bad, but now . . . it’s not so fun anymore.”
“Okay . . .” Roxie gave me a questioning look.
“I’ve been angry and hateful for so long and now... I don’t want to be angry and hateful anymore. I just want to . . . forgive.”
Roxie looked at me with hope in her eyes. “Forgive?”
I nodded.
She reached out to me and I walked into her arms. We stood there hugging and crying for what felt like forever. I didn’t have any tears left. And when we finished, I didn’t have any hate left either.
“I love you, Sabrina. Always have,” Roxie whispered into my hair. She pulled back from our embrace to look at me. “And I’m so sorry I messed up. I was so young and so . . .”
“I forgive you, Roxie. I forgive you.”
We hugged again. When we pulled away, Roxie wiped my face and looked me in the eye. “You sure you’re through? With this whole Blake thing? Five steps is enough revenge for you?”
I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, five steps is more than enough.”
Roxie smiled. She picked up the ex-lax cake and turned it over into the trashcan. “Okay, it’s done.”
Her cell phone vibrated. She picked it up and looked at the screen. “Well, now ain’t that something. We mighta thrown that cake away too fast.”
I frowned.
“This joker just sent me a text saying he wants to come by for a quickie before his eight o’clock meeting tonight. Says he’s on his way down in ten minutes. Ain’t that something?”
I was surprised that I didn’t feel even a flicker of anger in my heart. I shrugged my shoulders.
Her eyes twinkled and she picked up the phone and typed a text message.
“What did you tell him?” The look in her eyes made me ask.
“I told him to come on down. I figured if we’re gonna end it, we might as well end with a bang.”
Chapter Fifteen
Roxie disappeared into her bedroom and reemerged moments later in a sexy red dress of her own. “Have a seat in my bedroom. I’ll call for you in a second.” She winked and shooed me into her room.
I sat in the sitting room, flipping through the photo album. As I looked at the pictures of me, Roxie, and Grandma, for the first time I felt some peace about us all. It seemed like the huge rock of hate that I had carried around on my shoulders for years was gone. I felt light and free. Brand new.
A few minutes later, I heard a knock on Roxie’s front door. I heard her shoes clacking through the foyer and I went and stood behind her cracked bedroom door so I could hear.
Roxie’s voice was low and sexy. “Well, hey, baby. Why the long face? You okay?”
I could hardly hear Blake’s voice as he mumbled something low.
“Well, come on in and tell Mama all about it. Can’t nothing be that bad that a little lovin’ can’t fix it.”
Their voices moved closer and I figured they must be sitting on the couch in the living room. I could hear Blake loud and clear. “I’ve had the worst few weeks of my life. I got called into a meeting today and found out I didn’t make partner. From the way they sounded, I may even lose my job. I can’t figure out who it was, but somebody in my company deliberately sabotaged me.”
My heart beat faster as guilt and regret rose up in me. We had cost Blake his partnership.
“And this awful thing happened in church this Sunday and now I’ve been ostracized by all my friends and I’ve lost important social connections.”
“I’m so sorry, baby, but you know you got me,” Roxie said.
Forgive me, Lord. I didn’t mean to destroy the man’s life. We had waited too late to stop our plan for revenge. I would have to find some way to apologize to Blake.
“And then my assistant called in sick today. I think she knows with everything going on at the job that my days there are numbered. She’s probably out interviewing somewhere else.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe she was really sick. You always talk about how dedicated she is.”
“She was. Lately, she’s not been performing up to speed. In fact she’s gotten downright lazy and useless.” Blake’s voice got louder and I could just imagine the angry look on his face. “I took her on when she was a lowly secretary. I’ve made her what she is today and she has the nerve to leave me? I mean, I’ve helped her grow personally and professionally. You should have seen her before I got to her. An absolute mess—a silly little girl with no experience or people skills. She didn’t even know how to dress properly. Now she’s the best in the office. They’ll probably fire me and fight over who gets to keep her.”
“Hmmmm . . .” I heard Roxie say. I could tell she was biting her tongue. So much for me feeling sorry for him.
Blake’s voice rose. “I’ll see about that. I can ruin her name at the law firm and then give her horrible recommendations wherever she tries to go.”
Roxie’s voice was a little tight. “Now why would you do that, honey? That girl’s been good to you. You might have helped her, but she helped you too. You told me she took you to a whole new level in the company.”
“Yeah, but what good did it do me? I didn’t make partner. The whole point was for me to make partner. Now that it didn’t happen, she was just a waste of time.”
Roxie didn’t say anything, but I knew she was thinking about rescuing that cake out of the trashcan. I wasn’t. Even though Blake was saying those hateful things, I was through. I didn’t want to hate anyone ever again for the rest of my life.
“Anyway, I didn’t come here to talk about her or any other stuff. I came to spend some time with you before this meeting. You act right and I might cancel the meeting. It’s not that important anyway.” I heard the couch shifting a little and wondered how far Roxie was going to take this.
Blake’s voice sounded low and soft. “Roxanne, you know how I feel about you. You mean the world to me. You’ve been there for me through all of this. I know we haven’t been seeing each other that long but . . . well, everything that’s happened lately has made me realize how much you mean to me. Since my life has completely gone to hell, we should do something crazy. Roxanne, will you marry me?”
I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists. Before I could get good and angry, Roxie let out that laugh of hers, low and throaty, strong and sexy. She laughed for a good while before Blake finally said something. “What’s so funny?”
“Now, honey, that’s the craziest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Tell you what. Before we get married, there’s something you should know about me.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you could tell me that would change my mind.”
“Okay. In that case, I have a daughter.”
“A child? You have a child? But surely she’s grown and on her own, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then why should that matter?”
“I’ll let you decide.” Roxie called out, “Sweetie, come on out here and meet your soon-to-be stepdaddy.”
All the color drained from Blake’s face when I walked into the living room. He jumped out of Roxie’s arms and off the couch and stood. Roxie stood and put her hands on her hips. Blake looked at her and then at me and then at her and then at me. “You . . . You’re . . .”
He walked around the couch to where I was and faced me. He was staring at me like he’d never seen me before and it took me a second to remember the hair, makeup, and sexy red dress I was wearing.
I put my hands on my hips like Roxie. “Hi, Blakey.” I looked down at my watch. “We still on for eight o’clock?”
“Sabrina, what are you doing here? Why are you .
. .” He looked me up and down and then turned to Roxie again. “Your daughter?”
Roxie nodded and smiled. “Ain’t she just beautiful? Now that’s who you should be asking to marry you.” She smirked.
Blake moved back from me to a neutral position between the two of us. “How long have you . . .”
“How long have we known about you and your lying, cheating ways? Let me see . . .” Roxie stroked her chin like she was thinking. “Christine let us know about three weeks ago.”
Blake’s mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. “Christine?”
We both nodded. Roxie continued. “Yes, honey. Christine. And I have to tell you, Amber and Shaquetta weren’t too happy about it either. We all took it kinda bad. But I can honestly say—we’re all feeling better now.”
Blake turned bright red and I could see the anger boiling up in him. “You . . . It was all of you? You all . . . did this to me?”
We both stood there, allowing everything to register in his brain.
“How could you do this to me? You’ve destroyed my life.” Blake clenched his fists and walked toward Roxie. His breath was ragged and fast. I was almost afraid of what he would do to her.
She held up a hand. “Watch yourself now. You don’t want to get cut, honey.” Roxie smiled but her face was stone-cold serious. “And I will cut you.”
Blake had the good sense to back up off her. He turned to me. “Sabrina, how could you do this? I thought you loved me.”
I laughed, sounding almost like Roxie when I did. “I thought you loved me too, Blake. See how it feels when you find out the truth?”
His eyes hardened. “You destroyed me and now I’m gonna destroy you. You’ll never work in this city again. By the time I’m finished with you—”
In one move, Roxie stepped up in Blake’s face, in front of me. “Now you really better watch yourself. Everything that happened to you was my doing. Not hers. She came over here and asked me to stop. You see, Roxie always plots out ten steps to revenge. My sweet little daughter here got nervous at five.” Roxie leaned up so close to Blake’s face, she could have kissed him. “You do anything . . . and I mean anything to hurt my daughter and I’ll start all over again from step one. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll never work anywhere in this country again. And you might just find yourself in jail. Or worse.”
Roxie pointed a finger and jabbed it in his chest. “You hurt my daughter again and I’ll make sure you never stop hurting. Now I suggest you get yourself out of here and forget you ever knew me. When you get to work on Monday, you pick the best lawyer in that firm and you give them a glowing recommendation about Sabrina and make sure they take her on. Right before you turn in your resignation. And if anything bad ever happens to her, I don’t care if it’s ten years from now, I’m coming after you. And this time I won’t be stopped until I’m done.”
Blake pressed his lips tight together.
“And the next time you decide you want to run some women, I want you to remember Roxie, hear?”
Blake turned on his heels and stormed toward the foyer. After he slammed the door, Roxie burst out into laughter. I just stood there. She walked over and took my hands.
“You okay, sweetie?”
I nodded. “Yeah. As long as I stay on your good side.” We both laughed. She took me in her arms and I let her hug me. I squeezed her real tight and said, “Thanks, Roxie.”
“Anything, anytime.” She stepped away from me and said, “Well, I guess since you don’t have your dinner date, you’ll be going on home?”
I smiled and took her by the hand. “I thought I might stay around. And eat my favorite cake with my mama.”
A Piece of Revenge
Rhonda McKnight
Chapter One
I downshifted the gear and maneuvered my car into the left lane on I-10. I couldn’t get downtown fast enough. “Four dollars and eighty-three cents.” The thought of the balance in my bank account gave me a 600-horsepower burst of adrenaline that not even a Lamborghini could match. I wasn’t driving a sports car, not even close, so I had to use my good old “Tamera Watson” foot pressure on the gas pedal to push my late-model, “needs service and new tires” Honda Accord just above the sixty-five mile-per-hour speed limit. Dang computer glitches. They had robbed me of my joy this morning. I wanted to see the balance the account had grown to. I wanted to celebrate the clearing of the final deposits I’d made from the corporate benefactors who were subsidizing The Micah Center, my dream.
When it opened, The Micah Center would be an inner-city community center for kids, the ones who wandered the streets after school and on weekends. Young lives waiting to be wasted in the drug-infested, crime-infested streets of south Phoenix. Lives like that of my younger brother who was serving the last few months of a ten-year stint for bank robbery in an Arizona state penitentiary. I closed my eyes for a second to the pain that ten years had bought me, but I could not close my heart to my brother’s words.
“I didn’t have anything else to do,” Todd replied when our grandmother had asked him why. Why, after all she’d sacrificed to raise us after our mother died, why did he do something so foolish? Nothing to do. I shuddered and blinked back tears. My brother’s life had been stolen, but I was determined that I would give some child something to do. Unfortunately, Phoenix Federal Bank was robbing me of the anticipation of that, them and their antiquated online banking system.
I’d tried to resolve the problem by logging out, refreshing the Web page, and logging back in to see if things had miraculously been fixed in the two-minute span of time it took to do all three, but they had not. The Micah Foundation still had less than five dollars in the account. I’d picked up the phone, dialed the customer service number, and proceeded to push the series of numbers I needed from my account ID to the last four of my social. All to be told the bank was experiencing extremely high contact volume and to call back later. They didn’t even let me hold. But then I figured the high contact volume was probably due to the fact that their computers had gone crazy and moved everybody’s money around while we were asleep. No matter, I’d be there in less than five minutes. Well, that was if Miss Daisy would move to the right. I groaned. I downshifted again and moved back into the center lane.
I wasn’t ordinarily this impatient on the road, but I had taken the day off from work to be productive, not downtown. I had bills to pay, invoices that had been waiting for the corporate funds to become available. We could have taken care of the bills already, but my husband, Leon, had insisted we wait.
“Baby. Let’s hold off until all the money is in the account. Don’t you want to look at it? Don’t you want to see the balance when it’s at its highest?”
Leon reminded me that vision was visual, and I’d acquiesced. I shivered just thinking about the pre–bill paying celebration we’d had that night. A smile curved my lips, and a flutter filled my belly. “Ooh, that man,” I whispered into the emptiness of the car. Vision. He had enough for the both of us. That was one of the things I loved about him. He always convinced me to think big—bigger than I dared to. So against my normal operating code, I agreed to hold off on paying the vendor’s down payments.
“They’ll wait a few weeks,” Leon had said, and wait they had.
Today I wanted to call them all and inform them their checks were in the mail. But I couldn’t yet, because Phoenix Federal was messing up. I rolled my eyes in irritation at the driver in front of me, moved into the far right lane, and made the quick exit off the interstate for Seventh Street. I ran right into a mini traffic jam. I hated coming downtown. Maybe we should consider another bank, I thought, reaching for my cell phone. I’d have to run that by Leon. I pressed the speed dial number for Leon’s cell phone. He’d left so early this morning that I’d barely had time to kiss him. The call went to voice mail. I sighed, put the phone down, and waited until the traffic moved.
Finally arriving at the bank, I exited my car and made rapid steps to the entrance. I barely escaped be
ing knocked over by a man who was rushing to get through the door. He looked irate and I wondered if he had a balance error too. I waved at one of the men I knew to be an assistant branch manager. He’d helped me to complete the refinance on my house.
“Ms. Watson, good morning.” The assistant manager stuck out his hand as I approached.
“Good morning”—I stole a glance at his name badge—“Ken, I have a problem that I’m sure you’re aware of.” He raised his eyebrows like he had no idea what I was talking about. “With the online bank system.” I threw my free hand up in a dramatic flair of frustration. “My account balance is incorrect.”
Ken shook his head, let my hand go, and ushered me into a glass-encased cubicle a few feet away. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
I took a plush wing chair and observed as Ken clicked on the keyboard of the computer in front of him. “Your account number?”
“It’s my business account. Tamera and Leon Watson for The Micah Foundation.” I gave him the twelve numbers I’d already committed to memory. Ken typed some more, gave his long, thin nose an exaggerated twist, and turned the huge thirty-inch monitor toward me. I stared for a second. I saw something now that I had not seen on my home computer, because it didn’t give very much information. The balance was still four dollars and eighty-three cents, but there was a debit for $180,000. My stomach lurched.
“That’s what I mean. The hundred and eighty thousand dollars, where is it? It’s supposed to be in the account. I was waiting for the last sixty thousand dollars to clear last night, but the other hundred and twenty had already been cleared and I shouldn’t have a debit.”
Ken coughed and did some more typing. “Well, Ms. Watson, you withdrew the funds.”
My stomach lurched again. I felt like I had sucked in a room full of bad air. Withdrew the funds. That was crazy. Ken was looking crazy. I cleared my throat and started my count to ten to stop the spirit of cuss that was fighting to come over me.
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