Authors: Niobia Bryant
∞
Alicia smiled as she fingered the yellow receipt of the check she deposited in her bank account. “Fifteen hundred dollars more than I had two weeks ago, that’s for sure,” she said with satisfaction.
Calling
The Star Gazer
had been more profitable than she could ever believe. Effectively she had killed two birds with one stone: she ruined Chloe’s reputation to run her out of town, and she made some money. The pictures she supplied from the twins’ portfolio had given her an extra bonus.
Too good to be true.
They had been more than willing to listen as Alicia had posed as a “friend” over the phone. And she had made sure everyone she knew had heard about the story in the paper, although she let on to no one that she had sold it to the gossip rag. She would not let that get back to Devon.
And she did this all for him . . . well, for them, really.
Tomorrow she planned to “drop by” for a visit to her friends, just to innocently mention the article to check their reactions.
Oh, Chloe knew about it. Alicia made sure of that when she slipped a copy of the paper into Chloe’s mailbox today. She laughed as she imagined the woman’s distraught face. How she hated her and now she got her revenge!
Chloe heard the phone ring but she ignored it. The pain and betrayal was the same as the first time she had been the subject of the gossip rags. She had been just a few days shy of eighteen and still remarkably innocent, even after three years under her belt in the business. She was now in her early thirties, just one year after retiring from a lucrative career. She was successful, independent, mature and intelligent, and it still hurt like it did all those years ago.
Adell knocked on her daughter’s bedroom door. Chloe didn’t answer but she knew she was in there. Trying the doorknob, she found it unlocked, and she slowly entered the room. Her heart broke to see her only child’s slim figure balled into a fetal position in the middle of her bed, her body shaking with tears.
As any mother would, Adell wished she could carry all of the burdens that rested on her child’s shoulders. "Chloe baby,” she called out, coming to sit on the side of the bed.
"Honey don't shut me out. I would fight the world for you ... if I could." Tears glistened in her own full eyes as she laid a comforting hand on Chloe s designer-jeans-clad leg.
Chloe still did not look up from the pillow she squeezed tightly to her body. Adell knew then that she had not prepared her young innocent child for the pitfalls of becoming famous and stepping into the public eye. How could she really when she didn’t understand the phenomenon of it herself?
She had still raised her daughter in the same manner before she began modeling, even after they moved out of their small apartment and Chloe gained supermodel status. Adell wanted Chloe to remain grounded, so she knew she had to be blunt to toughen this child-woman of seventeen. Chloe had to learn to battle on her own and not hide.
"Honey I'm sorry 'bout those lies. You and I, and all of the people who know you and I mean really know you, don't believe a word of that trash in those papers or on those TV gossip shows." Adell paused, struggling to find the right words. “Do you know what my Mama, your Nana, always told me? That as long as people have tongues in their mouths there would be those who lied, and that I shouldn't let it break my spirit because they lied on Jesus Christ. Until the ends of time there are going to be mean and spiteful people who’ll keep on lying. She told me to always hold my head up high and be proud with the truth and ignore the lies. Let ’em roll off your back like water.”
Leaning over, she reached for the pillow covering Chloe s beautiful face. “Chloe baby, there are jealous and evil people out there who will break you ... if you let them.”
She smiled down at Chloe's tear-streaked face, so like her own when she was around the same age. “We live in a nasty world filled with people who love negativity. It makes them feel better about themselves. That's why those gossip rags sell. They don’t want to hear about Chloe being a sought after supermodel and straight A student about to graduate high school top of her class. They don’t care that you volunteer almost all of your free time to the homeless shelters and women’s clinics in your neighborhood. Honey, those things are the truths for you to be proud of.”
"You sit up, wipe those tears and show them liars that you don’t care. You’re greater than them. So just let them lies roll off your back like water, Chloe.”
“Mama,” Chloe moaned, her eyes burning with tears. “I need you. I need you so much.”
‘Let them lies roll off your back like water, Chloe.’
Her mother’s words, more than fifteen years old and still wise, replayed in Chloe’s mind. No, Adell wasn’t here now but all of her life’s lessons that she passed on to her daughter remained.
‘Let them lies roll off your back like water, Chloe.’
Chloe got up out of the bed, resolved to not let those foolish lies break her spirit. She was not a drug addict, she was nowhere near poverty and the home built on her family’s land was beautifully furnished and completely paid for. All of it was stupid and foolish lies that were easily provable as such. She would have found them funny ... if she felt like laughing.
Slowly she undressed, letting the expensive custom evening dress from Biba bis fall to the thick white carpet in a pool of midnight blue. Naked, she walked into her bathroom and ran steamy water into the double-sized claw-foot tub. She dropped in a handful of freesia-scented bath beads and lit the numerous Paddywax scented candles around the room before dimming the lights.
Chloe slowly stepped into the bath, letting her skin adjust to the steaming water before finally sinking beneath the scented depths with a sigh. Her head hammered from her earlier crying and her face was tight with the residue.
‘Let them lies roll off your back like water, Chloe.’
“You are so right, Mama,” she whispered, sure that from where her mother was in the heavens above that she could hear her. “I’m going to let them lies roll off my back just like water. I’m better than those liars. I
will
hold my head up with pride for everything I’ve accomplished.”
Gone were the tears and, yes, some of the hurt had subsided, replaced by resilience. Now just the anger remained because the longer she rested in the warm depths of the water and inhaled the soothing aromatherapy, the more her thoughts were clear. They were no longer jumbled and they began to crystalize.
Something very succinct had brightened in her thought process like a lightbulb ... a very big and bright thousand watt lightbulb. Chloe sat up straight in the tub, water flying everywhere.
How did
The Star Gazer
get photos of the inside of her house?
∞
Devon turned into the driveway with his left hand as his right continued to throb like the devil. He was more than glad that Poochie’s car was nowhere in sight. Parking, he reached across his chest to turn the key in the ignition with his good hand.
He wiggled the fingers of his injured right hand. At least it wasn’t broken. Sighing, he hopped out of the truck and walked up the stairs into the house. No sooner had he closed the door behind him than his grandmother walked into the living room carrying a bowl of ice and an Ace bandage.
Deshawn called from the kitchen, “How did you get in a fight without me?” before he too walked into the living room.
Lil pushed him down onto the sofa as she sat beside him and examined his hand. “Great goodness, Vonnie,” she exclaimed softly.
“How’d you know—”
“Charlie called me,” she interrupted him before he could even finish his question. “Said it was with that jackass Luther over Chloe. True or not?”
Her voice was no-nonsense as she settled his hand into the bowl filled with ice cubes and cold water. Devon winced before answering, his voice tight, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Deshawn bit noisily into an apple as he peered down from where he stood behind their grandmother’s seated form. “Well this is a small town and even if
you
don’t want to talk about it, everyone else will.”
Another noisy bite.
Devon leaned back against the plaid sofa, his eyes closed. His hand was nearly frozen and still throbbing. He thought of Chloe, wishing it was she tending his hand. He could see her face so clearly, masked with concern, her hair flowing around her, the sweet scent of her surrounding him as she nursed the hand he injured defending her honor.
Deshawn took another noisy bite, his mouth filled with the sweet crisp fruit. “If I heard him bad-mouthing Chloe I would’ve knocked him on his—”
“Shawn!” Nana Lil shouted, cutting him off before he could release the obscenity.
“Sorry Nana.”
“Charlie also told me about that article about Chloe in one of those tabloid papers.”
Devon sat upright, his voice exasperated. “What paper?”
The squeal of tires and the flash of lights turning into the yard precluded any further discussion. A car door slammed and before anyone could move to the window to see who their visitor was, the front door flew open like a hurricane blew it.
Chloe stepped into the house, dripping wet and clothed only in a thin cotton robe that barely concealed her nakedness. Water pooled from her hair down the back of the robe. Her chest heaved in anger, and a crumpled colored newspaper was clutched in her grasp.
She looked as if she’d fallen in a pond.
Devon thought she never seemed more beautiful than when she blazed with anger, especially with her skin glistening from the water, her beautiful cat-shaped eyes flashing, and her breasts heaving up and down in a rather hypnotic rhythmic motion beneath the thin cotton material that clung to them. He could see the outline of a plump nipple.
Suddenly he realized that if he could gaze upon the nipples he loved to taste, then so could his brother. One glance at Deshawn’s bemused expression as he ogled Chloe confirmed his suspicions. “Deshawn,” he warned, his voice deep with an edge.
“What?” he asked innocently, glancing briefly at his brother before returning to his leering.
“Chloe baby. What’s wrong?” Lil swooped the afghan from the back of the couch and brought it over to put around Chloe where she still stood by the door. “You’re soaking wet.”
“I was in the tub when I realized that Alicia sold pictures of my house to this . . .” She held up the balled paper clutched in her fist. “To this . . . this tabloid garbage. She probably sold them the lies as well.”
“Alicia?!” Devon and Deshawn both exclaimed in astonishment and immediate disbelief.
Nana Lil looked skeptical as well. “Chloe, let me see this mess everybody’s talkin’ ’bout.”
Lil took the paper from Chloe and straightened out the crumpled pages as best she could before slipping on her reading glasses.
“Alicia?” Deshawn repeated again. “Why would you think she would do a thing like that, Chloe?”
Chloe looked to Devon, ready for his skepticism or outright disbelief of her accusation of Alicia. He met her stare but said nothing, knowing full well that the topic of his best friend was a very sore subject between them. But even if he did not say so, he did not believe Alicia would do what she was accused of and Chloe saw that in his eyes. She stiffened in anger.
Lil snorted in derision, her wise graying eyes bright with anger. “Well that’s the biggest bunch of bull crap I ever saw. Chloe’s no more on drugs than I am. And the way this girl shops, how in the world could she be broke!”
“Drugs?” Devon barked, breaking his stare with Chloe.
Deshawn grabbed the paper and read the entire article aloud. Chloe hated the stab of pain she felt in her gut as she heard the vicious lies about her. Devon saw it and felt his anger rise as Deshawn neared the end of the article.
Chloe wrapped the blanket closer around her body and turned to gaze out the window at the night.
“Is this the crap you punched Luther about?” Deshawn balled the paper up and threw it solidly into the wastepaper basket across the room. “Too bad you didn’t break his damn jaw.”
Chloe’s eyes rounded with surprise as she whirled to face Devon. It was then she saw his hand resting in a bowl of ice water. “Devon, what happened to your hand? Who did you hit? What did this Luther say about me?”
The questions flew out of her mouth like automatic gunfire as she rushed to kneel by Devon’s feet. Gingerly she reached out to touch his injured hand, causing the blanket to fall from around her shoulders. “Oh Devon,” she whispered, and felt tears rising again.
Nana Lil walked over to pat Chloe’s shoulder comfortingly. “He’s okay, baby. Why don’t you dry his hand and then wrap it tight with this Ace bandage?”
Chloe took the white hand towel and Ace bandage Lil offered her, immediately getting to work on his hand as instructed. The concern he imagined was clearly etched in her beautiful face as he watched her closely. He felt comfort as the sweet scent of her rose for him to inhale and her hair floated forward off her shoulders.
He was still so angry about the lies told on this beautiful woman that he didn’t even feel the pain as Chloe tightly wrapped his hand. He would gladly injure it again if he could get to the one who hurt his woman!
To think months ago he would have believed the crap. “I’m sorry Chloe,” he whispered, deep and low enough for just her ears. “I don’t believe one word of it. You know that.”
Chloe looked up at him, her eyes hesitant. “Do you believe me about Alicia? Honestly Devon, do you?”
When he didn’t answer, Chloe shook her head before lowering it to finish her task. Hurt assailed her slender frame. “Chloe—” he began.
Her head shot up and he saw the pain in the honeyed depths. “I have no reason to lie or accuse someone unjustly. I would never do that.”
After tightly wrapping his hand, Chloe moved away from him. He felt lost. Devon watched as she retrieved the newspaper from the wastepaper basket, her curvaceous body outlined by the lamp beneath her robe.
“Deshawn, please go to the office and get your portfolio.” she asked, her voice determined.
“What does that have to—”
“Please Shawn.”
Unsure of her purpose but still willing to honor her request, Deshawn left the house.
“Chloe, I saw the pictures of your house in the paper. But do you understand why it’s hard to believe Alicia’s involved in this mess?” Nana Lil spoke from where she leaned against the back of the recliner. “She’s a dear friend to the family. Alicia and the twins have been the best of friends for years, since they all were children.”