Gold Diggers

by Tracie Howard

This was the second time he’d brought this up. “Just Paulette,” she replied.

  “Was she ever alone with it?” he asked.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “Gillian, please, just answer the question.” He never spoke so firmly with her.

  She was about to say no, when she remembered leaving the bag in the living room and going into Paulette’s bedroom closet, at her insistence, to find a blouse to wear. “Yeah, but not for long.” She also recalled Paulette going through his things, pulling out his designer wear and commenting on each label. For all Gillian knew, after she left the room, maybe Paulette had continued rifling through Brandon’s personal effects.

  “Damn!” he muttered.

  “Brandon…Brandon?” He’d already hung up the phone.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The moment Gideon made his appearance at the chic downtown art gallery, which was full of New York’s coolest aficionados and wannabes, Lauren could feel the heat of his presence; or perhaps she smelled him in that primal, instinctive way that has driven animals to mate throughout eternity. Though her reputation was for being prim and proper, since their lips had first touched weeks ago, Lauren had thought of little other than making love to this man. To hell with Max, who had personally killed any spirit that her mother left unspoiled. As far as she was concerned, whatever happened between her and Gideon was long overdue.

  When Gideon looked at Lauren from across the room, her spine tingled deliciously, and when his eyes caressed her from head to toe, turning his lips into a conspiratorial smile, the warm sensation traveled southward. Enjoying the building anticipation, she lifted a glass of chardonnay from a passing waiter and sipped it slowly, savoring the sight of him as he wooed both art critics and collectors alike. His humble confidence was very intoxicating.

  “Lauren, darling! It’s great to see you!” Lauren snapped back to reality, only to find one of her mother’s snotty sorority friends wearing a plastic surgery–altered smile plastered cruelly across her face. It was hard to tell whether the woman was really smiling, or grimacing in extreme pain. Her skin was so tight it looked like a handheld Halloween mask, holding hostage a pair of eyes that darted nervously about, looking for an escape.

  It took Lauren a moment to transition from the rapture of lust, past the gruesome sight of this poor woman’s desecrated face, to some semblance of proper social etiquette. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Lansing.”

  “Darling, you look wonderful, but then you always have.” The woman tried for a broad, endearing smile, but it was truly a scary sight. She was sipping a cocktail in a tumbler, and it was clearly not her first—or second. She barely managed to stand straight, so her reed-thin frame teetered precariously on a pair of four-inch stilettos.

  “Thank you,” Lauren managed.

  Beth Lansing was an it girl from way back in her day. Though she was long past her prime, the memories were still very fresh in her mind. She didn’t see the atrocity that haunted her mirror, only the much-desired debutante she once was. More and more of Lauren’s mother’s friends were having plastic surgery and turning themselves into the walking dread; even Lauren’s mother had scheduled her first “touch-up” for next month. This sad by-product of self-obsession affirmed that the direction Lauren’s life was traveling in would be littered with shallow corpses hanging on to self-imposed social limbs, a virtual spiritual cemetery.

  “What brings you to a downtown art gallery? The Upper East Side is more your speed,” Beth said through collagen-impregnated lips. “Do you know Mr. Miller?” She was a bad cross between Lil’ Kim and Joan Rivers.

  Lauren was not sure how to respond. “Y-yes, I do know his work.” She couldn’t help but feel guilty, like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  “Handsome man, huh?” She struggled to wink one of those frightening eyes, and nudged Lauren’s elbow, glancing in Gideon’s direction. “A tad dark for my usual taste, but boy, is he sexy.”

  Lauren brushed off the deeply bred ignorance and concentrated on not getting busted. “I hadn’t noticed,” she said nonchalantly. She had the unnerving feeling that everyone present could see that she was a married woman who was out to cheat on her husband.

  “You’d have to be visually impaired not to, my dear. The man reeks of sex appeal. If only I were a few years younger. I can’t say that I’d marry him, but we could have a little fun.” She chuckled, taking a sip of her drink, but never letting her eyes roam far from Gideon.

  Lauren was appalled at Mrs. Lansing’s conversation; it wasn’t as if they were contemporaries having a little girl talk. She was her mother’s friend for God’s sake, however drunk! “How is Judith?” Lauren asked, attempting to change the subject. Judith was Beth’s daughter and, sans surgery, an exact replica of her mother.

  “She’s fine. She married a doctor, one of the Phillips boys, you know, Judge and Mrs. Phillips from Boston.” Before Lauren could answer she plowed ahead, turning over a subject that was well tended. “They bought a home, a really big one, up in Westchester, and they have my granddaughter, Ella. She is gorgeous, of course. Pretty hair, light skin. She’s perfect.”

  Lauren grew up subtly aware of the premium her ilk placed on light skin and “pretty hair,” but to hear it here and now by this woman was absolutely appalling! It was even more obscene voiced among the beautiful images of Africans Gideon had captured, and that now surrounded them. The strong dignity and grace captured in these photos wasn’t a function of Ivy League schools or the right neighborhoods, and certainly not of features that resembled those of the oppressor. She felt embarrassed to be associated, in any way, with the hideous woman who stood before her, especially knowing that she represented everything that Lauren’s life had also represented, at least up to now. How sad, she thought, that she’d followed the dictates of an uninformed society like a mindless lemming.

  “How is that handsome husband of yours?” Mrs. Lansing asked, taking another long sip of her joy juice.

  “H-he’s fine.”

  “Where is he?” She looked around as though Max might pop out of the woodwork.

  “He had a client dinner tonight.”

  “Oh.” She gave a knowing look. “So while the cat’s away…”

  “Hey, gorgeous.” Gideon was suddenly at her side. He wore a fitted black knit V-neck T-shirt and cream drawstring pants that draped nicely over a pair of black loafers.

  “Oh, hi.” For a second she forgot about Tight Face and all the vileness that she represented.

  “Mr. Miller, I love your work,” Mrs. Lansing interjected, batting her eyes the way a teenage girl might. “I’m a friend of Lauren’s family.” She extended her hand to shake his, holding on a beat too long.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Gideon, this is Mrs. Lansing; Mrs. Lansing, Gideon Miller.”

  Sensing Lauren’s unease, Gideon nodded and said, “Thanks for coming. Lauren, it’s good to see you.” He eased away, greeting the next cluster of eager fans.

  When he was gone, Mrs. Lansing turned to Lauren with a raised, questioning brow. “You two seem awfully…how shall I say…familiar.”

  Fifteen minutes later, when Lauren managed to disentangle herself from Tight Face’s grip, Gideon slipped her a note. It read:

  Meet me at the loft in an hour. Can’t wait to see you!

  Many kisses,

  GM

  She smiled and tucked the note into her jacket pocket, unconcerned with the gossip that was surely percolating at the root of the black social elite’s grapevine. In the time it took for Mrs. Lansing to leave the gallery and extract her cell phone, Lauren’s unsubstantiated affair would become a bona fide fact that would be wildly embellished before sunup.

  Exactly an hour later she pulled up to Gideon’s loft, even more nervous than before. This time she wasn’t uneasy about the neighborhood, but about the personal boundary that she was prepared to cross. She pressed the buzzer
, heard the beep, and vowed to leave the old Lauren behind on the sidewalk. Stepping out of the elevator she walked into the large loft, which was dimly lit with candles.

  “Gideon?” A second later she felt his arms wrap around her from behind, and she melted into his embrace. He swept her hair to one side and kissed the nape of her neck, sending wild shivers racing through her body. She wanted him to stop, because the feeling was too intense to be tolerable, but at the same time she would have pleaded without shame for him to continue. Though they’d yet to shed clothes, their closeness was deeply intimate, their connection very real, erasing all thoughts of her family, her mother, and most especially her husband. Bravely, humbly, stoically, she turned to face him, keenly aware of all that doing so implied.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured. Their lips met like two wispy clouds blending together in a clear, blue sky. Time stood still for her, trapped, as it were, by the pressure of his lips as they joined hers, the first taste warm, wet, and sweet, his tongue probing, teasing, and deeply sensual.

  Lauren’s heart raced toward an unknown destination. She was barely conscious of her body’s rhythmic effort to keep up with him, or the steady flow of adrenaline that coursed through her veins.

  Instinctively her pelvis moved against his as she searched for fulfillment and oneness with him. His hands roamed her body, pulling her closer, caressing her at the right times, in all the right places, fearlessly exploring the unknown landscape of her body. They moved against each other, drawn together like magnets seeking the exact moment of complete contact. Through the layers of clothes and undergarments, she felt his mass massaging her at just the right place. Nothing could have kept her from chasing the ever-ascending levels of pleasure that every movement he made provided.

  With her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, she clung to him, bracing herself for the moment when there would be no control, when she would surrender to her own desires. Gideon seemed to know her body better than she did, so he held her tightly, refusing to let the building sensations subside. He made her go there. Lifting one of her legs for positioning, he never missed a beat. When she did let go it felt like a free fall, traveling to a magical, ethereal place that existed somewhere between earth and the heavens, a place she’d never been before. She stood in the middle of his loft, clinging to him for dear life as she had her first orgasm ever.

  When both feet finally touched the ground, she found herself still holding on to him in the middle of the room. Until that moment she’d never been able to figure out what was so damned good about sex, what all of the fuss was about. But now she knew. She also knew that she had a lot of making up to do.

  Without wasting another precious moment, she led him to his bed, where she worked all night to make up for lost time.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Being a star NBA player was as close to nirvana as the average young black boy reared in South Carolina was ever likely to come, so with good reason Chris loved having all eyes follow his every sure step, as he dribbled upcourt with a cocky confidence and a sure swagger. He was cheered, revered, adored, and catered to by legions of fans, especially those of the female persuasion. Babes drooled over him—and, of course, his money—like overexcited puppies tossed their first bone. They came to his games in packs and droves, each hoping to catch his eye, have his baby, and spend his money happily ever after.

  As a result, the majority of his fellow ball players needed custom racks to hold the belts upon which they notched their sexual conquests, but Chris, who was not the average ball player, had always managed to duck and dodge, effectively evading the fleshy temptations offered by the scores of beautiful women who stalked him as if he were prey. One explanation for his superhuman resistance was certainty that his “devoted wife” would like nothing better than to catch him with his pants down, so she could take him to the cleaners.

  If he were honest with himself, Chris would admit knowing that Reese had never loved him, and furthermore, that if not for his fame and fortune, she wouldn’t have given him a moment’s notice. But, in college he had deluded himself, falling for her dreamy looks of love like a fish into freshwater. After they were married, the only time he saw stars in her big brown eyes was when she was spending his money, and then her face lit up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

  All things considered, he wasn’t surprised when Kira told him about Reese’s plot to break their prenup. Kira sold her girl down the river without batting a false eyelash. Ever shrewd, she arranged for Shaun’s “introduction,” and happily cashed the check that Chris had given her for her trouble.

  He laughed at the irony of it; while Reese was busy spinning her flimsy web, she was already hopelessly entangled in one that had already been well set. Together he and Kira planned the infamous rendezvous at the Four Seasons hotel, the fake fire drill, and, of course, the hideous picture that was later plastered all over the tabloids and the Internet. Being underestimated and classified as a dumb jock proved to be a blessing for Chris, because Reese never saw the approach of her own demise. All was fair in love and war, and make no mistake about it—with Reese, love was war.

  Now she was nearly out of his life, and he had an eight-figure Nike deal days from final execution; in other words, Chris had the world at his talented fingertips. To make things even better, finally, Reese had agreed to give up custody of Rowe and had verbally accepted his settlement offer of a measly two hundred thousand dollars, even though the sum would dwindle like sand through a strainer once her attorney and Uncle Sam got their unfair share. The way Reese spent money, she’d be lucky if the balance lasted three months. Clearly she was desperate and couldn’t afford the time or financial commitment to hold out, in hopes of a bigger settlement. Besides, she had no chips to play, while he had a full stack.

  Chris felt as if he were cruising at the top of the world as he expertly maneuvered the rented black Escalade along the hairpin curves of Mulholland Drive, with Kanye’s title track, “Gold Digger,” thumping from the speakers, and his boy Damon riding alongside him. It sure was good to be king!

  “Man, that shit’s tight!” Damon said, bumping his head to the killer beat. They had been best friends since high school. Damon was one person whose motives Chris never had reason to question. He was down-home and regular; both were qualities that Reese had despised.

  “Yeah, man, Kanye and Jamie put it down on that track,” Chris agreed. “And you know, I could write a book on the subject.” They were chillin’, rolling through L.A. in a tight ride, sporting Sean John sweat suits, brand-new gym shoes, and enough bling to be taken seriously. They were headed to a private party given by a mutual friend.

  “I’ll bet you could.” Damon laughed. “That bitch Reese was crazy. I never understood why you had to go and marry her in the first place. Just ’cause she got pregnant? Man, that’s the oldest trick in the book.”

  “Yeah, but I fixed her. She’ll have to find another sucker to leech off of. I am free at last!” They high-fived each other and continued rocking to Kanye’s funky beat, soon pulling up to the Peninsula Hotel, where Chris hopped out of the car, tossed the keys to a valet, and bounced inside. They took the elevator to the penthouse suite.

  Five hours later, at four in the morning, exhausted from some serious partying, they came out of the swanky hotel. It had been a long night, and Chris had a big game with the Lakers the next day, so he felt no compunction about stepping ahead of a couple and two other guys who were also waiting on their cars. Chris broke in line, as was his right—after all, he was a star NBA player—and handed his ticket to a valet, not caring about the angry looks that were thrown his way. The Escalade was quickly driven around and he jumped in and took off, oblivious to the commotion erupting behind him.

  As they cruised up Wilshire Boulevard, jamming to KKBT the Beat, the music was so loud that neither he nor Damon heard the siren blaring or noticed the blue lights twirling madly in the night sky beh
ind them. It wasn’t until the LAPD cruiser pulled alongside the Escalade, the driver motioning him over, that Chris realized that he was being stopped by the cops. Being a black male in L.A., he felt unbridled fear as his natural reaction, until he reminded himself that he wasn’t just an average young black boy from South Carolina; he was a renowned superstar NBA player. Besides, he was also clean. Sure, he’d had a few drinks, but he was six-five and 220 pounds. Over the course of five hours, there was no way he was anywhere near drunk. After reassuring himself, he pulled the Escalade over to the side of the road, killed the engine, and rolled down his window. A tall, lanky white cop approached him, shining a bright flashlight through his window.

  “License and registration, please,” the cop said as he peered into the car, sizing up the situation.

  Chris squinted into the bright light, but with confidence said, “No problem, Officer.” He spoke clearly—no slurring of his words. He was respectful, was not drunk, and therefore had nothing to worry about, he told himself. Damon, on the other hand, was visibly nervous. A sheen of perspiration had appeared across his brow and upper lip, and his eyes had the look of those of a deer caught in bright headlights. Chris leaned toward the door to reach into his back pocket, tossing Damon a look that said, Chill; I got this.

  “Slowly…” the officer cautioned. His hand was near the revolver, his fingers already drawn toward the trigger. Two shifty-eyed young black boys, an expensive sports car, and four o’clock in the morning—it all added up to trouble in his book. To him, all black men fell into the same category: lowlifes. Some were just more polished than others. Besides, he wasn’t a basketball fan, so Chris didn’t look at all familiar.

  Taking note, Chris showed his palms and slowly reached into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet, and from it his driver’s license. He handed the ID through the window to the cop, and then reached over to the glove compartment to get his rental agreement. Right away he knew something was wrong; instead of the folded piece of paper that he’d left within easy reach, there was a small leather bag that he’d never even seen before.