Disastrously Fabulous: A Novel of Loves, Betrayals and New Beginnings
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Authors: D.A. Prince
DISASTROUSLY FABULOUS
A Novel of Loves, Betrayals and New Beginnings
by D.A. Prince
Copyright © 2016 by D.A. Prince
All Rights Reserved
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Renee who always encouraged me to write a book - finally, I am taking the challenge!
My parents who have been my rock and who pick me up from every fall.
Many thanks to my wonderful husband who has always been supportive.
My loving children, my best creation. They tell me how much they love me every day. I love and appreciate my family and am thankful to everyone for all you do.
To all who continue to have patience with me working on evolving every day!
“Detach from needing to have things work out a certain way. The universe is perfect and there are no failures. Give yourself the gift of detaching from your worries and trust that everything is happening perfectly.”
~ Orin ~
CHAPTER 2:
A Nightmare During the Day
CHAPTER 7:
Probation and Club Tibet
The Five Lessons
My name is Crystal. I’ve been called a firecracker, a go-getter, a live wire. I have also been called less complimentary terms that rhyme with words like ‘stitch’ and ‘score.’ Alright, I can be a bitch! But that has never bothered me much. In my life, I learned nearly every lesson the hard way. I mean, really a hard way.
If the hard way was a stone, mine would have been diamonds. ‘Your problems are diamond hard, so you might as well shine like Crystal,’ my dad would say in his lyrical Jamaican accent. That is how I got my name, and so my name turned out to be a reflection of the life that stretched out before me.
I like to think of it as disastrously fabulous, a beautiful succession of lessons that made almost no sense to me until I took the time to sit down and reflect. And what horrific pain it was! No one died – but the death of love and losing part of me each time with love, felt emotionally terrible. When betrayed or lied to, no one can brace themselves for how they’ll feel or react. Getting through heartbreak and heartache is tough. Especially as a young person, nothing prepares you if you've found love. Although I enjoyed the Concord flights, celebrity parties…and the affluence.
Only a few people can say that they’ve had a taste of the lux life and then lost it all. That's how it felt at the time. Rarely have they seen what I have seen, or experienced what I have done. But this is hardly my story. In fact, it’s a story about the five men who I have loved in my life and the lessons they taught me. Isn’t love an incredible thing?
Most fascinating, I think, is how it can blind you to the circumstances of your life. Love, you see, has been my biggest and most persistent problem. I used to believe with every molecule of my heart that love could conquer anything. Well, girls, I had it a little wrong. Love can give you the world, but it can also rob you of it.
I’m proud that I’ve loved with such ferocity in my life. It took me everywhere I wanted to go. But again, I learned the real meaning of the term by living through it. With five broken hearts come five diamond memories, the advice I know that you need or perhaps find helpful.
And so here I am with these
five lessons of love
. These diamond lessons brought to you by a woman that made every mistake in the book and survived with a smile on her face and love in her heart. What is real love? And what does it look like? I now know what it’s supposed to feel like. I have seen every lie and walked through the fire of every separation.
I’ll show you how to sparkle like a Crystal, baby.
Domestic Bliss
“True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.”
~ François de La Rochefoucauld ~
I had it all. The gorgeous high rise, New York Apartment on 48th Street. A Bentley limousine with a chauffeur to drive me around town. Bedroom-sized closets brimming with Gucci dresses, Christian Louboutin shoes and Cartier jewelry. Light, harmony, and the fabulous life belonged to me. These were the things that made me feel great.
I figured it out, at last, this crazy roller-coaster ride called love. Burt was a sweet man
—
romantic, fun and oh so wealthy! I couldn’t have asked for anything more wonderful. We were a power couple, a part of the African-American elite. My husband stormed Wall Street and made a fortune before he hit 35.
By the time I caught his eye, I was already part of the ‘it crowd’ working as a financial advisor in the Big Apple. At 34, with three children and a husband who would fly me around the world, I didn’t have to worry about a thing. It was domestic bliss.
Of course, it was also one big, fat lie. As a sale item you bring back home, only to discover that the original price was a few hundred dollars less than what you just bought it for, Burt’s idea of domestic bliss was different to mine.
That morning I woke up tired, still a little cloudy from our recent trip to Cabo with our twins and James. It was Saturday, more than enough time to recover properly before Burt headed back to work, and I busied myself with the girls, tennis, society life, and shopping.
Since marrying Burt, I no longer needed to work, so I ditched the financial service racket. It was never my passion, and it had served its purpose—to find me a good, stable man. Don’t get me wrong, I am no gold digger. I’ve been with a variety of men. I just decided young that affluent men were more fun.
My aunt always used to tell me that with my looks, I could have anyone I wanted. I’ve been lucky in my life that this has been true for the most part. Burt was attracted by my beauty, but he fell in love with my attitude. He needed someone around to help spend his wealth on experiences that enriched our lives, and I was the woman to do it. It was an art.
By mid-morning the maid was attacking my luggage, three large bags that needed to be unpacked before the weekend was over. The twins were off visiting their father Max, and James was taking a nap in his bedroom. Travel can be exhilarating and exhausting all at once. I made a mental note to give the nanny a call; Burt wanted dinner at the country club that evening.
Most Saturday nights we drove out of the city to meet up with friends at The Monterey, an exclusive country club where Burt hosted a lot of his business deals. I was always the perfect wife, adding an element of fun and comfort to the competitive negotiation process. I'm magnificent at creating an ambiance.
“Dinner reservations are for six, babe.” Burt pulled on his gym clothes and gave me that million-dollar smile. He could make my knees go weak, oh that man.
“Okay, hon, I’ll get hold of Julie and let her know to be here by five. Are your bags unpacked yet?” I called as I disappeared around the corner, an armful of clothes for the hamper.
“I’ll get them done tomorrow. Today I need to focus on feeling good for this business meeting. I need to be on my game,” he called after me
—
as I assisted the maid in dropping the clothes into our large laundry room, off our third master bathroom, adjacent to the kitchen.
He seemed agitated, but perhaps the meeting was playing on his mind. Burt could disappear into his work, which is what made him so successful. I pushed the feeling out of my mind and spent the next hour in one of my favorite places—my closet. It was a custom built design wonder that rotated a full 360 degrees.
If I wanted something, I only had to search for it on the system. It was entirely digital and keeping it organized was a job all on its own—but I loved it. Like everything else in my life, I spent an inordinate amount of time making sure whatever I wore made an impact and pleased Burt. You have to keep your man, happy right?
My gorgeous sapphire-blue dress with the draped shoulders and nipped waist would be perfect for dinner that evening.
Our trip to Cabo had been incredible. We stayed in plush luxury at a five-star hotel in the penthouse suite for the two weeks we were down in Mexico. The white sandy beaches, tropical drinks, and azure blue waters were exactly what we needed for some serious downtime. I had worn the blue dress on our first evening there, and Burt loved it.
My closet shuddered along soundlessly, speeding the spare blue dress towards me. I had purchased two of them at Barney’s before we left on holiday because I liked it so much. I grabbed the dress and hung it on the dressing rack next to my all-in-white furniture.
I turned on the stereo and let the music pump into the room. Music didn’t soothe my soul so much as keep it alive. A good song could instantly transport me into the mind of a famous singer—and I could become Rihanna or anyone else I cared to be with the right props and enough alone time.
At four years old, James often sneaked into the room after me and switched up the music, just to watch me perform as each singer. I did a mean Michael Jackson, but I never really got the hang of Beyoncé…though I liked to think that it was because of my authentic performances. My voice was about as silky as a polyester scarf bought from China Town.
“You’re growing up so fast, aren’t you? My little man.” My son was going to grow up to be a smooth dancer like his dad. We walked to the kitchen together, a marble palace of silver fixtures and the finest wooden finishes. I fixed us both my son’s favorite toasted grilled cheese, and we settled in front the television together.
Our television was the size of a small state and stretched from one side of the room to the other, like a fifth member of the family. Burt insisted that this television was the best, but sometimes I wondered. Was bigger better? I turned the stereo off and popped on some cartoons for James. He giggled manically as he watched.
The only sound I liked better than music was hearing my children laugh. I sat there for quite some time before I heard the creep and crackle of movement going on in the other bedroom. Burt must have finished his workout. James seemed happy enough, so I rose and silently glided over to the bedroom.
I peeked around the corner, and Burt was sitting on the bed. As silent as a nuclear test alarm, I dropped all presence when he looked up and fumbled around for a set of keys that was not there.
“Hey babe.” He looked like a cat that has just had a league of his familiar feline colleagues sink their claws into his tail. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” I repeated. Burt’s voice never cracked that way, and I could feel the tension in the room rise. What was wrong? I settled on the bed next to him. “Isn’t that my iPad, honey?”
He scooted backward some and continued to swipe through the iPad.
“What are you looking for?”
“Just looking at some photos from…from Los Cabo. I thought there may have been a few that I missed.” He flopped the iPad down on the bed, the screen dark.
“That’s weird. We spent the last five hours looking at the pictures on the flight home. You had the entire file on your phone.”
“Anyway, I better jump in the shower. This meeting is getting to me and it’s getting late.” The words came out in a rushed way, and he wasn’t meeting my eyes. “Better wash the stress away. You all set for tonight?”
Before I could answer, he clicked the door shut behind him. Moments later, the shower whooshed and steam filtered under the door.
My mind exploding into suspicion. What was going on?
Most men have secrets. But Burt was an upright man, and he rarely exuded such obvious discomfort.
I tried to stay rational, but my mind churned, as if James’s cartoon had sprung to life, and the Opposite Day comedy was unfolding in real life. Burt was an upright man, and while most men have secrets—he rarely communicated such obvious discomfort to me.
Confusion gave way to a sense of impending doom. It was the kind of instinctive warning animals get when a tsunami is heading for the shoreline. Maybe I was still vibe-ing off that Rihanna song I’d listened to earlier. Still inside me, something couldn’t settle down. I sat frozen to the bed while the shower pattered down in the other room.
I reached for my iPad and turned it on: Los Cabo pictures.
But why would Burt want to look at them again? He had every copy of every photo. What was he looking for?
Then it struck me, as the jealous hand of fate whipping me across the face. Burt was suspicious of me. He was looking for evidence that I had done something wrong.
My previous relationships had taught me that the most jealous person in the relationship is usually the one who’s doing something wrong. They are suspicious and insecure because they project their own behavior onto you.
The waters rolled out, and the wave grew enormous.
My head buzzing, I sank into a slow motion reaction. Rich men would always have busy bees fluttering around them to whom money was honey. But I had trusted Burt.
I stood and made my way over to his jacket, where his cell phone would be. It was easy. I dipped my hand into the pocket, and there it was. No password was needed; Burt didn't keep his phone locked— why would he? I had never checked it before. I trusted him. I returned to the bed, sitting cautiously with the phone in my hands.
I knew that once I crossed this line, I could never go back. That hidden in this phone might be answers to questions that could change everything. But it was already too late! I was a bloodhound, a greyhound, a heat seeking missile! My brain said no while my fingers worked against me.
The sounds of water and Sponge Bob Square Pants echoed through the lounge. My son just completed another hearty laugh and was cheering for his favorite character, Patrick. The phone felt strangely cold in my hands, foreign—like I was invading a defenseless country. I pushed the hesitation from my mind and broke in.
Burt was never jittery like that. Something was wrong. My brain knew it, my fingers knew it and my heart knew it. Even my closet knew it, as I mistakenly sat on my remote and it clattered to life. I paused briefly to turn it off again. The screen shone back at me, an index of faces, places, and names.
Where would a foreign country hide their secrets? I thought after browsing some random photos for a few minutes. Then I knew. They wouldn’t hide them. They would delete them. But phones never really ‘hard’ deleted anything. Deleted files were always available if you knew where to find them.
Like a barbarian invading the Roman Empire, I stormed into Burt’s deleted files. For a brief shining moment, I convinced myself that my actions were innocent. That I didn’t need to worry and all I would find there would be work texts and bad photos of our trip. Then I opened the first file. It was a picture of a vagina. Someone’s disgusting pussy.