“And so are people's lives, and it's usually at the hands of those who break the rules.”
I was beginning to wonder who was the litigator here, Emily or me. She was good, and she made a hell of an argument. But I knew what I wanted, and now I knew without a doubt that she wanted the same thing, too. This breakthrough, albeit not the way I had pictured it, was worth the cost of laboring through her story about spirits and prophecies.
This was what I had been waiting eleven years for, so I relaxed my body and reminded my big head to look at the larger picture. I knew that patience was a virtue, and lucky for me, I was a patient man. I knew this wasn't the time or place for revelations beyond what we had just shared. There would be another opportunity, of this I was sure, so I let it go. Again, I could feel Emily's relief.
We walked toward the door, our bodies close, still lightly touching, and it felt better than any courtroom victory.We headed down the long hallway to Emily's class as several students ran up to her.
“Bye, Ms. Snow. See you tomorrow,” a freckled face little boy said as he grinned like Emily had just given him a year's worth of allowance. I smiled because it was the way CJ grinned at her, too, and so did I But unlike the young boys, I had mastered the art of hiding it.
“How's Samantha's move going?” Emily asked out of the blue. She had changed the subject, returning to her safe world of structured rules.
“Just fine.Tyler's over there helping her.And because she doesn't have much furniture she'll be settled in fairly quickly.”
“Hey, Papa!” CJ yelled as he ran up to me from his classroom down the hall.
I bent down and rubbed the top of his head the way I did his mother's when she was his age.“What'cha know good, sport? How was your day?”
“Good!”
Emily smiled. “I guess it was. I heard that someone got a gold star for his perfect handwriting today. I wonder who that was?”
“Me!” CJ shouted, smiling with pride. “Auntie Emee, are you coming home with us?”
I looked at Emily as she answered. “No, CJ. I'm staying here for the after-school program, and then I'm going home to my house.”
“Can I come to your house, too?” CJ asked, then turned to me. “Papa, you promised I could go to Auntie Emee's new house.”
“Yes, I did. But you have to be invited first. Once you receive a proper invitation, I'll take you over anytime your aunt Emily says it's okay.” I smiled.
CJ turned and looked at Emily as if to say,
Hey, where's my E-vite?
Emily paused for a moment, then looked directly at me as she spoke to CJ. “It's not that I haven't wanted to extend the invitation, it's just that the timing hasn't been right. But now that it's out there, you're welcome to come over anytime.”
CJ and I both smiled, but for vastly different reasons.
Chapter 16
Brenda . . .
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renda smiled with satisfaction as she looked down at her feet. She was at Saks Fifth Avenue, trying on a bronze-colored pair of Valentino pumps. She loved the way the shoe enhanced the curve of her slender legs. “I think I'll take these,” she said to the young salesgirl, not bothering to look in her direction. She stepped out of the beautiful $1,200 pair of shoes and back into her own equally stylish ones. “I'll meet you at the counter,” she instructed before strutting away to make her purchase.
Brenda was delighted that after several weeks of shopping she had finally found the perfect pair of shoes to complement the one-of-a-kind dress she planned to wear to the party she was throwing tomorrow night. Initially, she was worried that Samantha might turn the elegant affair she was planning into a giant mockery. But from the moment she managed to persuade Emily to stay with them while her house was being renovated, all her worries were put to rest.
Emily was going to share top billing in the birthday celebration, which would make Samantha behave because she wouldn't want to spoil things for her best friend. Brenda knew that as determined to humiliate her as Samantha seemed to be, she was equally determined to do whatever it took to make Emily happy, especially after the pain she had suffered since her mother's death.
Brenda desperately wished that Samantha could be more like her best friend. Emily was responsible, exercised good judgment, and displayed perfect manners. She was hardworking and carried herself in a way that commanded respect. She never used foul language or raised her voice above an acceptable volume in public. She always adhered to the principles of time, never arriving late as Samantha always did. And even though her sense of style drifted toward the bohemian flavor, it was forgivable because she managed to pull it off with a hint of elegance. Unlike Samantha, Emily possessed a natural beauty that didn't require artificial enhancement.
Emily was the kind of daughter that Brenda had always longed for. She often thought about the cruel hand that life had dealt her. If circumstances had been different and had the stars been aligned just right, Emily would be her child instead of Samantha. Because as fate would have it, both girls were born on the same day. But Brenda knew that she couldn't lament over what could have been, which was why she was determined to guide Samantha toward a lifestyle more befitting a daughter of hers.
Brenda smiled to herself when she thought about the party, which was going to help her accomplish her goals. The first and most daunting goal was to usher Samantha back into the DC social scene and hopefully nab her a suitable husband in the process. Her second goal was to win a coveted position on the executive board of the Rock Creek Family Support Collaborative, one of the city's most notable charities. Brenda knew she possessed all the criteria that the board required. However, she needed to show her giving, selfless side beyond the sizeable donations that she and Ed made each year. And yet again, that was where Emily came in.
Brenda planned to demonstrate her generosity by the fact that she had opened up her home to a grief-stricken young woman who had just lost her mother to a debilitating disease and needed a place to stay. And going a step further, she had been instrumental in helping the poor girl find a good job. And if that weren't enough, she was making her a guest of honor at a birthday celebration that would also serve as an event to raise money for charity. Brenda knew those acts of kindness would surely impress the organization's board chair.
And Brenda's last but certainly not least important goal was to one-up Juanita Presley. She was apoplectic that the success of Juanita's party had netted another feather in her enemy's cap. Brenda thought that Juanita was the most egotistical, self-centered, and disingenuous person she knew. She flaunted her unearned good fortune as though it were her supreme entitlement. It made Brenda furious that everyone seemed to gravitate toward Juanita's fake charm instead of seeing the woman for who she really wasâa social-climbing shrew!
But it wasn't just their rivalry that made Brenda determined to rise above her nemesis, it was a matter of family. Brenda was livid about the fact that Dorothy, her own sister and only true friend in the world, acted as though she and Juanita shared the same bloodline. Even though Juanita had managed to sucker Dorothy, Brenda refused to let her win in any other area.
For Brenda, everything was about style and competition. She learned at an early age that in order to get what she wanted, she had to devise a strategy. In society's pecking order there were always people at the top who made the rules, and people at the bottom who followed them. She had plotted all her life to make sure that she was one of the people standing at the top, and that she stayed there.
Although birth order had relegated her to the bottom ranking in her household growing up, Brenda had used it as an advantage to get what she wanted. Before she could even crawl, she had figured out that a small pout of her dainty lips or a perfectly executed quiver of her adorable chin could elicit oohs and aahs that caused her parents, siblings, and other relatives to give her whatever her little heart desired. As she grew older and lost her cuddly baby appeal, she mastered the next stage of development in the art of manipulation. During her teenage years she embraced her picture-perfect, girl-next-door good looks and tastefully developed sense of style to influence and persuade people to give her what she wanted.
Brenda prided herself on being clever and resourceful, efficient and calculating. In addition to her natural physical beauty, it was those qualities that she attributed to her landing a husband like Ed. Ed was the prized catch in their social set, and from the time they were small children in Jack and Jill, she had set her sights on becoming his wife. There were other boys in their circle who were poised to be successful professionals with prominent careers, but Brenda saw early on that Ed's potential far surpassed the rest, and she was determined to land him.
She sat back, watched, and waited as Ed had his fill of the young beauties who clamored for his attention. They were much like she was, well-cultured girls from some of the best families in the city. But she wasn't concerned because she possessed something they didn'tâa strategic plan.
During their senior year of college, after Ed had run through as many coeds as she cared to tolerate, Brenda decided that it was time to settle him down and stake her claim. She studied his ways, took her time learning about the things that were important to him, and paid close attention to the causes he championed. And even though none of his interests seemed to mirror her own, she aligned herself with them for the sake of winning his heart.
The final stage in her well-orchestrated plan was sex. Brenda withheld physical intimacy until Ed nearly begged her on bended knee. It was then that she knew she was going to be the one on top, literally. She'd cultivated an arsenal of sexual skills through secret summer rendezvous on Martha's Vineyard. She picked boys who came up to the resort for summer work because she knew they had no social standing, thus removing the threat of a trail which could lead back to her group and damage her reputation. After several summers of hot and heavy action, Brenda knew that she was skilled, and when the time was right she'd make Ed forget about all the other women he'd been with.
Finally, after months of dating and waiting, Brenda allowed Ed the privilege of sleeping with her. “You're my first. This is so special for me,” she told him. She didn't show him all that she knew at once because her expertise would have been a dead giveaway. Instead, she rationed her abilities in small doses until she knew he was wrapped in her web.
But she soon discovered a problem she hadn't anticipated.The skills that she thought she owned were some of the same moves that Ed had experienced countless times with other women, and he told her as much one night during a heated confrontation.They had just finished making love in his off-campus apartment, and he was driving her back to her dorm room when the drama began.
“Brenda, I care about you, you know that. But I'm not ready to make a commitment of marriage,” Ed told her as he parked his car in front of her dormitory. “After graduation I'm heading to law school this fall. There are things I need to do before I settle down and start a family.”
Brenda sat in the passenger seat of Ed's brand-new red Mustang convertible, an early graduation gift from his parents, and seethed with anger at his reaction to the ultimatum she'd just issuedâmarry me or lose me! She knew she had to snag him before he entered law school, otherwise all bets were off. “You don't want to settle down because you want to sow your wild oats,” she said above soft sobs. “You don't love me.”
“Brenda, c'mon.We've been through this a thousand times.”
“How could you, Ed?” Brenda sobbed harder. “I went against my upbringing and slept with you before marriage.You were my first and only, and now you want to just toss me to the side.And for what? Suzanne Jones?”
Suzanne Jones was a radical young feminist from San Francisco. The tall, dark, and lovely coed sported a perfectly coiffed six-inch afro and had managed to catch Ed's eye . . . and Brenda took notice.
“This has nothing to do with Suzanne,” Ed sighed. “This is about me and what I want for my life.”
“You're saying you don't want me?”
“I'm saying I don't want to get married right now.”
“Same thing.” Brenda pouted.
“Whatever.”
“That's all you have to say to me?”
Ed gripped the steering wheel. “It's late and I've got an early-morning class. I'll walk you to the front door.”
“Haven't I been a great girlfriend to you?” Brenda continued. “I've fulfilled every fantasy you could ever imagine, in and out of bed.You've never had it so good!”
Ed let out a smirk followed by a small chuckle.
Now Brenda was pissed. “What're you laughing about?” she asked, raising her voice.
“Brenda, let's just drop it.”
“No, I want to know what that little smirk was all about.”
“No, you don't.”
“Yes, I do!”
“Brenda, trust me. You really don't want to know what just crossed my mind, so why don't you let me walk you to your door and we'll call it a night.”
Brenda was furious. “Be a
man,
Ed.Tell me the truth!” she spat out, knowing her challenge would spark a reactionâand it did.
Ed turned in his leather bucket seat and looked straight into Brenda's eyes. “The truth is that I've had all kinds of women, all kinds of ways. So when you sit there and tell me that I've never had it so good I have to laugh, because quite frankly I have, many times.”
Brenda wanted to scream at the top of her lungs and slap Ed across his face, but there was a small group of underclassmen that had just gathered out front and she refused to let them know that she and her boyfriend were arguing. So instead of causing a scene, she let Ed walk her to the front door of her building, then gave him a small kiss on the cheek to make the onlookers jealous before bidding him good night. Once she was inside her room she burst into rage-filled tears, throwing every object on her dresser to the floor. “He just said those hurtful things to get back at me because I challenged his manhood,” she reasoned aloud. “How could any other woman possibly compare to me!”
After she calmed down, she put Ed's foolish slip out of her mind and didn't spend another moment thinking about the other women who had come before her. She wasn't concerned about them because again, she had something they didn'tâa strategy. And this time her plan was already in motion, thanks to the fetus growing inside her womb with Ed's name on it.
For the last thirty-two years her plan had worked. Now, as Brenda admired her newly purchased designer shoes, she was confident that her next set of goals would come to fruition.
She smiled to herself as she watched the sales associate tuck her expensive purchase into the black-and-white shopping bag. “And to think that I wasted my time in New York looking for the perfect pair of shoes when they were right here waiting for me all along,” she said to the sales associate who swiped her platinum card. Then her mind turned to Harry Winston and the night they had shared during her stay in New York. He had given her a type of pleasure that she hadn't experienced in a very long time. Until now, only Ed had been able to truly satisfy her, but Harry had matched him.
As Brenda walked out of the store and into the hot summer sun with her new shoes in hand, she experienced a jolt of excitement just thinking about her next encounter with Harry. She slid into the seat of her freshly washed Mercedes, pulled out her cell phone, and hit
NY Jewelry Store
on her speed dial. “Well, hello,” she purred in a low, seductive voice when Harry answered.
“Brenda, I'm glad you called. Are we still on for next weekend?”