Bad Girls Finish First (24 page)

David's eyes flashed with anger. “Who?”

“That,” Erika said, her own anger flaring, “really isn't for you to know.” She moved to walk past David, but he grabbed her arm.

“Tell me right now,” he said sternly. David was so worried about who else might be doing Erika that he wouldn't be able to enjoy himself until he found out. His mind wouldn't stop replaying the kaleidoscope of images banging around in his head: flashes of another man, with lighter skin and larger where it counted, devouring her.

True, he'd made his confession to Raven in San Diego, faced his emotional baggage. David had named his demon, but that wasn't the same as exorcising it. Because he loved Raven, David had thought he was over Erika, but the notion that she'd replaced him was more than he could stand.

“Reverend Capps, I didn't know jealousy made you lose control. I thought only alcohol did that,” Erika snapped as she jerked away from him. “It's nobody you know. He's a colleague of mine, an investment banker from Sweden who's detailed here for a month.” She looked at him accusingly. “What did you expect? It's not like you've been knocking down my bedroom door lately.”

“He's Swedish?” David stammered. “But I thought—never mind, forget I asked.” David blinked and the jealousy in his eyes morphed into confusion. Then his confusion disappeared and David was left with . . . nothing.

“Now that we've resolved that,” Erika said as she reached for David. “I know what you need.” She began unbuttoning his shirt.

David tried to push her away. “Why don't we sit down. Have a drink, talk for a minute,” he said feebly.

“Uh-uh,” Erika said as she undid his pants and gently pushed him against the wall. She knew that David got primal satisfaction from having her kneel before him so that he could grasp her hair with both hands, holding her in place while he did his thing. For her it was okay, but she did it mainly because afterward David put all his energy into satisfying her.

David looked through half-opened blinds across Erika's backyard as he tried to figure out what to do. Erika's dim garden lights twinkled romantically. The lights reminded David of a restaurant that he and Raven had gone to in San Diego.

When Erika's knees hit the hardwood, she got a very irritating surprise. “What's wrong?” Erika asked. She looked up at him. “What do you expect me to do with this?”

“I don't—I think this might not be the right time,” David said. He wished for a drink.

Erika got to her feet and pressed herself to David. She kissed him, stuck her tongue in his ear and said, “Don't worry. I'll fix it.” She went back down and tried to bring David to life.

So when it happened, neither Erika nor David was prepared. David was still limp, and it's a good thing he was, because he yanked Erika's hair so hard that she instinctively clenched her jaw.

“Ouch!” David shoved Erika and crouched down beside her. “Someone's out there!”

“David, that's impossible!” Erika whispered.

“Tell that to whoever's outside with a camera! See, there it goes again.”

Erika and David watched the nonstop camera flashes as they crouched behind the sofa. “David, we've got to stop this guy. How am I going to deny it's me in those pictures if he's got a dozen shots of my house?”

David's fantasies about white women didn't include his turning light-skinned enough to play white knight to a damsel in distress—he wished Erika would figure out a way to stop the intruder that didn't include him, but he couldn't say so.

David cursed the dim garden lights. Whoever was outside could probably see inside.

“When I count to three, I want you to create a distraction, scream and throw something. I'll run straight toward the doors. That ought to scare him off,” David said.

“One . . . two . . . three!”

Erika screamed and threw a statuette of Sam Houston toward the French doors that opened onto the patio. David scrambled from behind the sofa, and screaming like a warrior, ran directly toward the patio.

More camera flashes blinded them both, then the photographer ran off. He'd run out of film.

David freaked. “People can't find out I'm fooling around with you! This would ruin—”

Erika stepped in front of David. “You're not fooling anyone, David. Everyone knows you've got a thing for white women, so cut the
me, me, me
bullshit.”

Erika was lying, in a way—she'd heard plenty of rumors about David, but nothing about white women.

People knew?
That bit of information stoked David's panic. Living the fantasy wasn't turning out the way David thought it would. Definitely not.

“I should go,” he said. He took a step and came firmly down on a piece of glass from Erika's shattered French doors.

“Ouch!” He hopped from that piece of glass onto another one. “OUCH! Oh my God, I'm cutting my feet to shreds!”

“Then stop moving around, you idiot,” Erika said. “Let me clear you a path to the sofa.”

As Erika picked shards of glass out of David's feet, they didn't say much, but they shared the same thought.
We're screwed.

 

 

When Dudley printed the photos, he got so excited he could feel blood pounding in his ears. He took two of his wife's blood pressure pills, then called Dr. Laverne.

“I have an emergency, I'll see you in twenty minutes.”

“Dudley, it's Saturday, I don't see patients today.”

“I'll pay whatever you want. I'm on my way.”

A short while later Dr. Laverne flipped through the photos of David and Erika while he and Dudley talked. “I don't understand why you had to do this,” Dr. Laverne said.

“Who said anything about having to? I'm pulling everybody's strings because I want to. It's fun.” Dudley sat comfortably on Dr. Laverne's sofa as he spoke. Although Dudley had called Dr. Laverne practically beside himself with the need to talk to someone, once Dr. Laverne began looking at the pictures, Dudley stopped being his usual wound-up self. No pacing back and forth. No agitation. No grievances to air. Not today. Dudley was the original cool cucumber. And why shouldn't he be? The world was turning, and finally, Dudley would be the lucky one.

“Maybe your intentions are good, Dudley. You want Michael to win the election, and bringing Ms. Whittier down is the only way to do that. But these photos . . . can't you see how they could destroy your brother?”

Dudley frowned, clearly offended by Dr. Laverne's questions. “I've spent my whole life helping David. That's all I ever did: stand in the background, use my brains to help my little brother succeed. So no, Doc, don't twist what I'm saying. I don't give a shit about what happens to David when these pictures come out.”

Dr. Laverne hesitated when he got to a full frontal shot of David. No wonder the man was so fixated on women. That thing had to be fed.

Dr. Laverne removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. “Okay, Dudley. Let's go over it again. Tell me why you find it necessary to destroy your brother.”

They talked for another two hours, and at the end of the session, the only thing Dr. Laverne knew for sure was that he had earned every penny, and then some. He made a mental note to raise Dudley's hourly rate.

As Dudley prepared to leave, Dr. Laverne said, “One last question. Did your private investigator happen to follow David when he was with Raven?”

“Why, Doc?” Dudley was preoccupied with putting the photos in their correct order. He didn't bother to look up.

“I was wondering . . . did your investigator . . . do you have any pictures of those two . . . like these?”

That made Dudley look up. He was happy to find out that Dr. Laverne was as messed up as everybody else. Dudley's day couldn't get any better.

“No?” Dr. Laverne said when Dudley continued to stare at him without saying anything. “That's fine, just thought I'd ask.”

Since Genie had caught Christopher with Monica, Genie and Christopher had worked together, sometimes side by side, sometimes talking by phone a half dozen times a day, and through it all they acted like complete strangers. Professional, polite strangers, but strangers nonetheless. A person who didn't know their history had only one clue that something was amiss between them: Christopher and Genie never looked each other in the eye.

When Genie ran out of Monica's apartment, Christopher didn't follow her. He didn't call her for three days—couldn't get up the nerve. When he finally called, his apology fell somewhere between contrite and defensive. Genie hung up on him, and from that point they never spoke of it again.

Christopher found himself driving aimlessly one afternoon and the next thing he knew he was at Genie's doorstep. “Thought I'd stop by, see how you've been,” Christopher said as soon as Genie undid her deadbolt and let him in.

“You see me every day, Chris. Can't you tell from looking at me? I'm just fine,” she replied with no trace of emotion.

Genie did look good. She never missed a beat on the outside. But on the inside she'd changed. It was her first time being hurt by a man, having her trust hurled back in her face. She couldn't help but change after feeling that type of pain.

“Can we talk?” Christopher asked.

“Sure.”

Christopher sat, but Genie remained standing, with her arms rigidly at her sides.

“I'm sorry, Genie. I know when I apologized before, I made it sound like you pushed me to Monica. You didn't; I made the decision to get with her on my own. I'm sorry I cheated on you, and I'm sorry I was such an asshole about it when we talked before.”

Genie sat down. “You were an asshole, and I accept your apology, at least on that part. What else?”

“I need you to forgive me because I want you back. I miss everything about you,” Christopher gave a half chuckle. “Even the stuff I used to complain about. You're older than me, smarter than me, maybe even more ambitious than me. I couldn't handle it.”

“So you ran to a woman who was less than me? Is that what you're saying, that Monica was nothing but a way to get by whenever I bruised your ego?”

“Monica? She's okay . . .” Christopher stammered. “I mean she's all right, she's not . . .”

Christopher looked at Genie. Her eyes said,
Tell me the truth.

He started over. “Monica's different from you but she's like you, too, in a lot of ways. Smart, strong.” He looked into Genie's eyes and watched her wince as he added, “Kind.

“She's not as focused as you are. But no, I can't honestly say that she's less than you.” Monica, Christopher found out when Genie left her apartment, was more woman than he'd realized. Just like Genie had never been on the receiving end of heartbreak, Monica had never seen herself as the other woman until she looked into Genie's eyes. Genie's eyes were magic mirrors reflecting Genie's hurt and Monica's role in it.

“I can't be a part of bringing a sister down like that,” she'd told Christopher as he gathered his things to leave.

Christopher urgently needed Genie to pay attention to his next words. “Monica's not the one I love, and she never will be. We broke it off the same day you came by her apartment. Monica doesn't even work in the Dallas office any more.”

He gestured with both hands. “I love you, Genie, and you're the only woman I want.”

“I love you too, Chris, and I forgive you.”

Christopher moved toward her, but Genie put her hand up, a stop sign.

“This experience has me thinking about what I want out of life.”

“And?” Christopher felt anxiety rise in his chest.
Why'd she have to go and start thinking?

“I forgive you, but that doesn't mean I want to get back with you. You hurt me, Chris.” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “And you're right about me, I'm ambitious. I've got a million dreams, and I'm not ready to settle down with one man.” Seeing the look on Christopher's face, it was now Genie's turn to plead for him to understand her. “Chris, I meet men every day—fine men, interesting men. And not once,
not once,
have I so much as given out my cell phone number.” She paused, “But I've wanted to.”

Christopher looked shocked. How could Genie even think about another man?

“Oh, so now you're ready to get out there, mingle with other men because of the mistake I made?” Christopher was on the defensive again. “Sounds like a recipe for HIV if you ask me.”

“Nobody's asking you.” Genie felt the urge to spare Christopher's feelings but she fought it. “I'm not saying I want to sleep around, but do other men catch my eye? Yes, the same way Monica caught yours. And this isn't only about me wanting to date other men.”