Nappily in Bloom Read online

  I knew it wasn’t a compliment. Legend worked for me at one time while I worked for Jake. In other words, I was his boss. He did his best to cut me off at the knees at every turn. When he found out Jake had fallen for me, he did his best to destroy that, too. So now he was trying to pounce on my happy homemaker existence, mocking my sandstone-painted walls and dark hardwood flooring. He’d probably taken note of the coordinated silk screen paintings on the wall like a catalog shot for Pottery Barn.

  “As a matter of fact, I did decorate it myself. Unfortunately, I never got to the guest bedroom, so you’ll have to sleep on the floor.” Like a good doggy should, I wanted to add.

  Jake intervened. “You’ll have a bed, man. But let me tell you, keep messing with V and I’d advise sleeping with one eye open.”

  I sneered and left, vowing not to let Legend get to me. Just two nights, three days. I could do it. At one point I’d had to stomach him every day.

  That night after dinner, I tried every position to fall asleep. The stress of knowing Legend was in my house and had full access to everything I loved dearly made me toss and turn. Having him as a guest was like inviting a vampire inside, knowing you were going to get bit before sunup.

  The first bad sign was the way Jake had come to bed, pent up and angry. The way he hadn’t bothered with niceties like a kiss or nuzzle before going straight for the gold. I hadn’t been ravaged in some time—not to say I didn’t enjoy it. But then, there’s that fine line of feeling used. That moment of sadness when you realize you could’ve been Helga the bearded lady as long as he’d found the warmth between your thighs. Thrusting in and out, he found his salvation and wasn’t concerned about bringing me with him.

  All the while, I tried to make sense of the pieces of conversation I’d overhead before they heard me coming and stopped talking. Serious . . . double jeopardy . . . new trial.

  Jake was such a fierce protector. I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t see straight through Legend and his destructive personality. He was bringing all the baggage Jake specifically wanted to get away from. He fell asleep quickly after his less-than-stellar performance. I nudged him. He didn’t budge. “Baby,” I whispered near his ear then shook his elbow. “Babe.”

  “Tomorrow, okay. Whatever it is, tomorrow.”

  “Not tomorrow. Now. Wake up. I want him out of here. Okay?”

  “Okay, babe. Okay,” he said before turning over.

  I wished I’d made him pinkie swear.

  Whispers in the Dark

  Trevelle

  I’d enlisted a good and dear friend to do what he did best: spy. Whoring wasn’t the oldest profession, as so many believed. The truly oldest profession was finding another’s weakness or strength and using that information to one’s advantage. Even Moses sent twelve spies to the land of Canaan to explore the potential for success. Tell me what I should do. Moses asked those men for crucial information that would change lives. What I’d done was no different.

  I simply needed to know if Airic was being honest with me about not seeing Chandra anymore.

  Eddie Ray was a big ole teddy bear who wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he was mean and relentless when it came to getting information. By any means necessary was his motto. Airic’s car, office, and bedroom were all wired for sound. I had my suspicions, but I wanted to be wrong.

  “Let’s meet as soon as possible,” Eddie reported on my voice mail. “You’re going to want to hear this for yourself.”

  Just the thought of what I was going to hear made me angry. I was about to give Eddie a call back when the next message played.

  It was my editor’s assistant. “Ms. Doval, please call Monica Jackson as soon as you can. It’s important that she speak with you.”

  The publisher hardly ever called, but my new book was about to be released; maybe there was some last-minute detail. I called right back. There were very few people who could demand a call back and get one; those three were clear. Lawyer, agent, and editor were top of the list.

  “Hello, Trevelle. Good to hear your voice. Are we excited yet? Book launch three weeks and counting.” She sounded unusually cheery.

  “Very excited,” I said, although I couldn’t summon it in my voice. I was too exhausted from trying to stop my world from crashing around my feet. If she had good news, I needed to hear it like nobody’s business. “So what’s going on?”

  “Well, there’s been a slight change of plans. The numbers aren’t coming in for preorders as we expected. Normally you know we do the full tour and ad spots. But with the booksellers not behind us—” She paused to offer this as gently as she could. “—we’re going to have to launch with a little less bang.”

  I pushed my chair closer to my desk to rest my elbows and massage my temples. “Unbelievable. How much less bang are we talking?”

  “Basically, we’re going to leave it up to your viewers for support on this one. The budget was pulled for the ads and tour. I’m really sorry.”

  This was a death sentence. If the book didn’t receive front-door space, it may as well have been left in the box and set on fire. “I don’t understand how this happened. This is ridiculous. I reach thousands of people on television, I have a huge following, why aren’t the preorders higher?”

  “Honestly, they don’t think it’s going to sell. Remember . . . the title, we tried to get you to change it, and you fought hard to keep everything as it was? You Have the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone: If a Restaurant Can Do It, So Can You. The booksellers are saying it’s a bit cold and confusing.”

  “Who doesn’t understand? It’s clear as it can possibly be. Women are constantly giving themselves away as if they have an obligation to serve these men that have little or no respect for them. That title speaks the basic truth . . . you have a right to refuse service, period. What is there not to understand?” The room was getting hot as the sun shone on this side of my penthouse. I fanned myself with an envelope. “Then change the title, change the cover.”

  “I wish we could go back and make the changes, but the book is already printed, and as it stands, we don’t have enough preorders to warrant paying for front-door space or any other caveats.” My editor sighed as if talking to a child who didn’t understand the big picture. So why continue to argue. “Let’s just make the best of it. Hopefully you can use your forum to market the book and sell them at your church functions.”

  “I don’t do church functions,” I snapped. I actually pulled the phone away from my face to make sure this wasn’t a bad dream. “Monica.” I said her name to be sure I was talking to the same woman who’d promised me the world if I left the small imprint where I’d started off and signed on with her publisher. The same woman who told me that she would take care of me and we’d make sweet music together. “Listen to me, and listen closely: I will not accept defeat on any level. I spent a year writing that book. A year of my valuable time. We are not promised a tomorrow. None of us are. This book will be successful whether I have your support or not.”

  I hung up and moved to my luxurious bed and fell face-forward. I didn’t want Marcella to come rushing if she heard my scream. It was all Airic and Chandra’s fault. If they hadn’t hurt me in the worst possible way, my thoughts wouldn’t have been so negative. If I hadn’t spent the last few months stressing over our marriage, I could’ve been publicizing the book like I was supposed to. Now what?

  Negativity and resentment foul up the soul. Why would God grant me promise and victory when I’d spent every waking moment with a vengeful heart? “I forgive you,” I said into my pillow. “I forgive your lies.”

  I immediately felt better. I honestly felt like a weight had been lifted off me. I rose up and moved to my television. I pushed the button of the DVD player so the disk would come out. There was nothing written on it except the manufacturer’s name. No evidence or proof of where it came from. I pressed it to my chest with my best idea yet—genius, in fact.

  I put the disk in a large envelope. I sat at my computer and w
rote a nice little note signed by Anonymous. There was nothing like a little free publicity. In the old days, it was called scandal. Nowadays it was the only way to be seen or heard.

  Delma

  Delma wasn’t usually a nervous ninny. She handled other people’s lives just fine. She was a municipal judge for goodness’ sake. However, this union of her daughter’s with Gray Hillman had her heart racing. Dry mouth, headaches, and night sweats after dreaming too hard left her exhausted during the day.

  Hudson had asked her a dozen times to speak her mind. She and Hudson had known each other twenty years before falling in love. If anyone knew her, it was her husband. He pressed on: “Tell Keisha about your dreams. She’ll understand. Holding it in is a health risk.” He was referring to the heart attack scare a few months back. Turned out to be heartburn, caused by stomach acids, caused by stress, caused by the day Keisha announced she was marrying a man she’d known all of sixty seconds or less. Her daughter was her life. Always had been. She didn’t want to disappoint Keisha by acting petty. They’d been through enough after the truth came out about Trevelle Doval being her biological mother. Making waves was not on the list of things to do.

  So she hugged her daughter and prayed that her concerns were imaginary. A trick of the mind. Jealousy, perhaps. The only thing she knew for sure was how she felt every time the man came within a few feet of her.

  Gray Hillman wasn’t your average man-species. Anyone could see that, and not because he was well-dressed, confident, spitefully good-looking, and smelled good. Nor was it his flawless creamy bronze skin and affable smile. These physical characteristics were merely a ploy to make you believe he was harmless.

  In her early days as a district attorney, it was always the unassuming types who’d been the most unnerving. The obvious ones didn’t scare you, because you knew what to expect—you could see them coming a mile away. It was the type who could put on a good face, the boys next door, Ted Bundy types who shook you to your core. Their sympathetic smiles and good looks masked heinous criminals underneath.

  Admittedly, she’d run every background check upwards and sideways on Gray Hillman, only to find a spotless record. Not so much as a parking ticket. He was a shepherd of good fortune. He looked good on paper as well as in person. Delma couldn’t say one bad thing out loud about the man. He was a catch by any standards.

  Add to that the fact his grandfather owned a good portion of southern Georgia, which turned out to be a convenient location for an oil pipeline. The Hillman name had become synonymous with real estate. The second generation owned hundreds of acres of land, selling it off in bits and pieces. There was no end to the Hillman brood creating new money, until one day a catastrophic hurricane destroyed the pipeline. Along with the destruction came a mega-lawsuit that led directly back to the Hillman fortune.

  Overnight, they’d lost it all. While the rest of the off spring fell into drugs and lazy drifting, Gray Hillman followed his passion to practice law. Delma knew it took perseverance to get through law school. So he was smart, handsome, and self-motivated. That’s why it pained her to be so uncomfortable around him. Her instincts spoke loud and clear, and would not be ignored. There were snakes in his closet, and she prayed they didn’t get out to bite her sweet daughter.

  “Mother, are you ready?” Keisha stood at the bedroom door, keys in hand with her overly large handbag on her elbow. Delma didn’t understand this new fashion statement. The smaller the pocketbook, the sexier a woman appeared. She was no guru on the subject, but that much she knew. Now it was the bigger, the better. Little did they know they all looked like they were going off to war with their duffle bags filled with life’s weaponry. Nothing sexy about carrying around baggage.

  Delma had to stop herself. Lately, all she did was criticize, analyze, and marginalize every single thing. Maybe it was time to take the estrogen her doctor had prescribed. “I’m ready.” She slipped on her comfortable flats.

  “Are you okay?” Keisha reached out a hand and pressed it to Delma’s forehead the same way she used to when Keisha was a child. Cherry cough drops and Campbell’s soup were a main staple in their house. Delma had loved taking care of her daughter. There had been no greater joy.

  “Didn’t get enough sleep, but I’m fine.”

  “Do you want to postpone, Mom? It’s okay. Nikki is going to meet me there, too, so I’ll have her opinion as well.”

  Delma wouldn’t dream of being absent while Keisha picked out her wedding gown. Regardless of how she felt about this wedding, it was her baby’s time to shine, and she was going to be there to the end. Just like always. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  Something in the Way

  She Moves

  Delma

  Keisha spun around in the long white gown, her bare shoulders smooth as the day she was born.

  “Look at you. Just look at you.” Delma took a cleansing breath and tried to count backwards until she could no longer contain it. She was sick of tears, the constant influx of emotion she’d given in to every time her daughter took one more step toward the altar.

  She couldn’t help but fight back the flashbacks of Keisha bloodied as a baby in the backseat of that pimp’s car, where Trevelle had left her. That memory haunted her now. Delma had to make a snap decision that could have cost her career if anyone ever found out she took the baby for her own. Delma couldn’t leave that child, not after all the suffering she saw throughout her life in the court system, with children being placed in the hands of incompetent women who would only perpetuate the ghetto reality generation after generation. Well, she was going to save one in her lifetime, really save one, and that was Keisha.

  The gown made her radiant beauty blossom. Keisha was smart and successful, at the brink of the happiest day of her life, yet Delma was in turmoil. No way could she contain or share her emotions with anyone in the room. It was like a reservoir filling up to capacity, with the water having nowhere else to go but spill over the dam and gush everywhere uncontrollably. “I love you, baby.” There went the floodgates again—it was really borderline hysterical, happy and sad all at the same time.

  “Mother?” Keisha was scolding now. “You’re scaring me.” Her words only made Delma hiccup and sob more.

  “You’re just so beautiful. You’re getting married.”

  “I’m about ready to start crying myself,” Nikki said, fake-dabbing her eyes. She was Gray’s assistant but also Keisha’s NBF or “new best friend,” as they’d explained. “What happened to your old best friend, or OBF?” Delma wanted to know. She had three other bridesmaids: Jasmine, Yolanda, the girl with the nose ring, and Sara—the one with hips that could take flight and who only dated rich white guys. Where were they on this special day? It seemed everyone who’d meant anything to Keisha was slowly being weeded out. Delma’s greatest fear was that she would be next.

  “Miss Delma, don’t think of it as losing a daughter—think of it as gaining a son-in-law.” NBF sat patiently next to Delma and stroked her back.

  “Wise words.” She patted the young woman on her knee when she really felt like pinching her. That was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. Who was ever happy to be gaining an in-law? Especially a son-in-law who sucked all the available air out of a room the minute he entered. She had to get herself together. This air of defeat was uncharacteristic for Delma J. Hawkins.

  She moved to Keisha and straightened out the six-foot train. “She’s getting on my nerves,” Delma said quietly, but loud enough for Keisha’s ears. It was all too much. These new people in their lives were closing in on them. Hadn’t it always been just the two of them and they did just fine?

  Had to be all her fault. She’d made the first move by marrying Hudson, her law clerk of twenty years, giving the impression that she needed someone besides Keisha in her life. Giving the impression that she wanted distance and space. She’d married Hudson because she was tired of waking up alone each morning and couldn’t see fit living shacked up like hippies. She and Hudson had bee
n comrades in the trenches for twenty years. Hudson was her rock and support, getting her through court dates of baby mamas versus knuckleheads, day in and day out. Most of all, he loved her like nobody’s business. They deserved to take the next step.

  Keisha and Gray’s relationship was completely the opposite. They had no history, no stories. Real friendship took time.

  “Miss Delma, I have some tissues in my purse.” Nikki dug around, pulling out a fresh pack of Kleenex.

  “I’m fine, child.” Delma said, fighting off the urge to release the sorrow building in her chest.

  “Mother, if you weep on this gown, I’m going to have to buy it—and I’m not sure this is the one.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s the one.” The voice came from over Delma’s shoulder. She turned around to see the man of the hour. He flipped his cashmere jacket from one arm to the other, then clapped his hands in appreciation. “You are radiant. Tell me that’s the one.”

  “Gray!” Keisha crossed her arms over her chest as if she were naked.

  “Please.” He grinned, shaking his head. “Tell me you’re not believing in some old-school superstition. Next thing I know, you’ll have us jumping the broom in dashikis and crowns of cloth. No, baby.” His honey-clear eyes filled with amusement. “We’re in the here and now, and it’s all good. By the way, knowing how beautiful you look, I could die tomorrow a happy man.”

  “Gray, don’t talk like that.”

  “I’m serious—you look amazing.”

  Delma stood up, though it had taken a moment to get fully straightened. “There’s nothing wrong with tradition. The groom waiting to see his bride look like a bride until the actual wedding day is a good respectful tradition.” She leaned side to side, then gave herself a lower-back massage.