Going Broke (3 page)

“Never invest your money in anything that eats
or needs repainting.”

—Billy Rose, in
The New York Post

Bank Statement # 2

 

 

“H
i, Daddy.”

“Who is this?”

A tear ran down my cheek just like every other time I talked to him. “This is Sarai.”

“Sa—
what
?”

“Sarai.” I tried to hold myself together. “Sarai.” I repeated it, hoping to jog his memory.

“What kind of name is that?” He sounded upset.

It was the name he had given to the oldest of his twins, Sarai and Savion. It was the name he wrote poems and songs about, a name he used to smile and scream when I walked through the door.

“Daddy, it's me.”

Suddenly, I heard a tremendous amount of noise and commotion before I heard the nurse's voice.

“Hi, Miss Emery.” She was polite. “I'm sorry, your father is having a bad day. He refused his medication again. I'm sure if you call tomorrow he'll be a little better.”

I could hear him in the background telling her to tell that gal never to call back again. Alzheimer's was a bitch.

 

 

My father's name was Lawrence Emery. He was just sixteen years old in 1952, when his 14-year-old girlfriend, Esther, turned up pregnant. They were forced to marry and later became the proud parents of not just Lawrence Jr., but also Emerald, James, and Rose.

After twenty-eight years of marriage, at age forty-four, Lawrence left his wife and children and relinquished the family grocery store to his wife, when he met twenty-one-year-old Sarah Irene Peterson, a nightclub singer traveling through Louisiana with a jazz band called the Bed Bugs.

Joining the band on the road, not only did Lawrence become their manager, but also Sarah's husband. Married only two years, twenty-three-year-old Sarah became pregnant with twins. She begged Lawrence not to cancel shows, promising him that she'd take it easy. However, Sarah Irene fell ill in the middle of January 1976. Everyone thought it was just exhaustion from her hectic performance schedule, but fate took a tragic turn on January 29th when she died in childbirth.

It was rumored that Esther, Lawrence's ex-wife, who had deep Creole roots, conjured up a voodoo spell to put Sarah and the babies to rest and bring her husband back home. Only a portion of the spell was successful.

Lawrence gathered his babies and belongings and moved to Dover, Delaware. He raised me and my brother, Savion, all alone, never remarried, and never wanted us to return to New Orleans to meet our half-sisters and -brothers.

Alzheimer's started plaguing him at the young age of sixty-five. He'd been in a nursing home for a little over a year. The disease was said to be yet another spell cast by Esther just before her death from a short battle with cancer.

 

 

I sniffled. “Please let me just say goodbye to him.”

“Well, he's a bit feisty right now,” the nurse said.

“Just give him the damn phone,” I snapped. I was paying $700 a month to have him in that nursing home, and as long as I was paying
her
bills, she'd better give me what I wanted.

“Who is this that keeps calling me?” he screamed.

“Daddy, I love you,” I cried.

“Yeah, yeah. If I tell you that I love you, will you stop calling here?”

“Yes.” I was desperate.

“What's your name again?” he asked.

“Sarah Irene,” I said, as though there was hope. “That's why you named me Sarah I. Sarai.”

“I said, ‘What your name?'—no time fo' long talk.”

“Sa-
rye
.” I sounded it out.

“I love you, Sarai.” He hung up.

With tears streaming down my face, I ran into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of Kendall Jackson's Syrah.

“What's wrong?” Damian walked up to me and took the glass out of my hand.

I tried to speak between my heavy breathing. “I just spoke to Daddy.”

“Oh.” He cradled me in his arms. “Baby, I'm sorry.”

I hated talking to my father.

“Why did this have to happen to him?”

As if having my mom die in childbirth didn't make me crazy enough. Having a father who didn't remember my name was like dipping me in a pool of alcohol after being clawed by a lion.

“Why?”

“Sarai, I told you to stop calling him so much.”

I stepped out of his embrace. “He's my father, Damian.” I looked at him like he was insane.

I knew my daddy loved me, but I guessed Damian couldn't understand what the love of a father felt like, since he grew up with a deranged alcoholic rapist for a father. Damian's father was so angered by his wife smiling while talking to a bill collector over the phone that he shot her point-blank in the temple.

“You don't know my daddy. He's not like—” Damn, I couldn't throw that in his face. It wasn't his fault—“He's not like this. He loves me.”

“But whenever you talk to him, you get so depressed.”

“Do you expect me to run around the fuckin' house after speaking to the man that raised me, hearing him tell me that my name is ugly?” I grabbed the glass from the counter and gulped down the wine. I felt faint. “He named me.” I wept. “He named me after her.”

Damian wrapped his arms around me and held me close for so long that I almost fell asleep standing up.

A few hours later, I was getting ready for the party. That's right—Saturday was finally here, and I needed something to get my mind off of Daddy, WBIG, and Lydia Delks in Houston. Lydia, a client from picnictogo.com, ordered a picnic basket with hunter-green accessories. I knew she'd love the hunter plates, napkin rings, and tablecloth. So, I arranged a set of small ivory, hunter- and mint-green silk flowers on the stems of the glasses and thought that mint green linen napkins, place settings, and pillar candles would be a perfect match. Yeah, right! I received a nasty e-mail from Ms. Thang on how I need to learn to follow instructions. Hunter-green means hunter-green; she didn't ask for my creative opinion.

The good thing about being my own boss was having a choice. I could've done one of three things. One, laugh and ignore the e-mail. Who would she complain to? Two, reply to her e-mail, notifying her that I'd seen the picture on her AOL homepage and no amount of hunter-green accessories would make her any more appealing to any man who might have a pity picnic with her. Three, I could chalk it all up to experience, entertain her with good customer service, call instead of e-mailing and offer to FedEx new napkins, place settings, and candles.

I did the latter, and she was so impressed with my professionalism that she apologized and said that now that she spread the arrangement over her living room table, she could see where I was going with it.

Damian wasn't ready when I was leaving, so I told him to meet me at BED; I promised Natalya that I'd be there at seven to help add the finishing touches to the room.

I checked myself in the mirror before leaving. My cinnamon-brown skin was looking nice, pressed out over my 5-foot 7-inch, 147-pound body. My naturally pouting lips were glistening, and the way my fitted, one-sleeved purple shirt hugged my breasts, I was sure a few people would ask me for the name of my surgeon. But I wasn't a nip/tuck victim. It was just pure luck.

I turned around and examined my backside, slapping my butt through my black pants a few times to make sure that nothing would be seen jiggling when I walked. I slipped on a pair of three-inch black sandals, put on my purple, green, and yellow-gold feathered butterfly mask and smiled.

“Damian, I'm gone, baby,” I yelled from the front bathroom.

“Okay. See ya in a few,” he shouted from somewhere in the back of the apartment.

I decided not to remove my mask for the drive. Motorists were doing double-takes all the way to the beach, trying to be certain that the chick in the black Expedition actually had feathers coming from the sides of her face.

I loved the attention. It was wild. I found myself waving and blowing kisses back, something I wouldn't do in plain face. I was hiding, no one knew my name, no one knew my face, and I could do whatever I wanted. If everyone at the party had the same feeling behind their masks, it would surely turn into an interesting night.

If there was a Mardi Gras section in Heaven, it must look just like the room that I walked into. It was an absolute dream. The purple sheets were spread tightly over the beds, and the sexy green and yellow-gold silky material fell from the ceiling, as though it was being poured from the skies. There were no lights, just hundreds of candles carefully placed around the room, and the disco ball sent white sparkles circulating on the walls. The party wasn't set to start until 8:00, but Natalya and I wanted to make sure that everything was exactly the way we wanted it. We hung the topless pictures around the room and sat at the bar awaiting our guests, enjoying a few cocktails.

The non-black guests showed up at eight, and the first of the black guests strolled in around nine. I was working the door; I didn't stop anyone. I just assumed that no one was tacky enough to just walk in. With my wineglass in hand, I bounced to 50 Cent—“Go shorty, it's ya birthday. Go shorty, it's ya birthday.”

Natalya and Li'l Dick Nick were bumping and grinding to the song like they were really going to get it on hot and heavy-style after the party—Error!

I handed out ten strings of beads to every man and also handed them a key. There were locks all around the room, on tables, at the bar and on the walls. Also every woman received a belt with a lock attached. In order for a man to be granted unlimited access to the bar via a stamped hand, he had to approach the bar with not only his key, but also the lock that it belonged to. The women had their hands stamped from the moment they walked in. However, they had to work to get beads from the men. There were no rules, but the three women with the most beads at 12:00 a.m. would win prizes. The man who kept the most beads would also receive a prize, so the women had to really work their stuff to take beads from the men. The games were a way to get people to interact.

I was at the door sipping on something and flowing to Lil' Kim's rap about how she had the magic, when a guy approached me from behind. “Will you turn my key?”

I spun around. Before even checking him out, I looked around the room for Damian. He was at the bar with his three uninvited friends. I glanced up at the man less than two feet away and smiled nervously. He was wearing a white mask that extended from his forehead to mid-cheek, just like the Phantom of the Opera. He wore a black dress shirt and slacks. His curly, black hair was cropped neatly against his scalp, and his goatee accentuated his sexy, pinkish lips. They looked as if he had just kissed the surface of the Red Sea.

“I'm sorry. What do you need?” I forgot what he asked.

“May I try your lock?” He didn't wait for my answer. He just reached for my waist and grabbed the lock.

“Whoa.” I was shocked by his aggression. “You're really trying to get your drink on, huh?”

His key didn't fit. “I'm trying, but I think you girls hid the lock to this key in the birthday cake or something.” He grinned. “I've tried everybody.”

“So I was your last choice, huh?” In the midst of my flirting, I was wishing that he'd walk away before Damian looked in my direction.

“I saved the best for last.” He sighed and gave up. “But it looks like my mission is still incomplete.” He gave me a polite smile. “Sorry to bother you.” He turned to walk away.

“Hey.” I grabbed his arm. “At least thank me for my trouble.”

“What trouble?” He stared intensely.

I thought about it and realized that there
was
no trouble. “Okay, at least thank me for my time.”

“Thank you.” He touched his mask as though he were tipping a hat.

“Who was that masked man?” I asked myself.

I gave up the door around 11:00 and made my way around the room.

I spotted India's extravagant rhinestone-studded angel mask. As I approached her, she threw on a smile. I didn't know if it was paranoia or intuition, but sometimes I got bad vibes from her. “So, is he here?” I asked.

“He had to be somewhere else.” She looked a little down. “As a matter of fact, I'm leaving in a minute.”

“Leaving?” I looked at her seriously. “You just got here.”

“There's nothing going on.” She rolled her eyes.

“I know you're not leaving because he didn't come.” I threw my hand up. “Forget him. Damian has some friends here.” I quickly checked them out. “I've never seen the guy in the white jacket before,” I said as I studied him from afar. “He's kinda cute.”

“Damn, you're checking out his friends now? That's just nasty.”

“I was checking him out for you.” I smiled. “Want me to introduce you?”

She looked over at them at the bar, where they were standing. “Naw, I'll be all right.”

“Are you drinking?” I asked because she seemed tense.

“I had a drink, but I'm still not hanging around.”

I couldn't believe her. “What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” She looked at her watch. “I just need to get out of here.”

“Aren't you having a good time?”

It was
always
hard to please India. If she wasn't the center of attention, then her night was ruined.