-28-
“We're the Banks' and we have a meeting with Mrs. Shelton,” a few voices one of the most beautiful family of women the receptionist had ever seen approached.
“Can I get you ladies anything to drink?”
“You got cocktails?” the older of the women asked. The receptionist quickly recovered after realizing that the woman was dead serious.
“No ma'am, just water, coffee, and soda,” she answered decidedly confused about the cocktail question at ten in the morning.
“Is it free 'cause I know how much these big muckety mucks jack everything up.” The older woman complained.
“Ma, please let's just have the meeting and then we can get something to eat or drink,” Simone interrupted already embarrassed by her mother's need to prove just how ghetto she was, a source of annoyance to her children.
“Mrs. Shelton will be right with you,” the receptionist said after informing Mrs. Shelton of her guests. “You're meeting in the conference room. It's right this way.” She led them around the corner and down a short hallway to a large glass enclosed room. Imagine their surprise when they found none other then Pastor Cassius Street sitting with a woman about the same age as Simone.
“Hello, I'm Lauryn Shelton,” she got up and came around the table and extended her hand in greeting everyone, but Deidra didn't acknowledged it. She was too busy trying to figure out something else.
“What's he doing here? You did say that this is the reading of my mother's will?”
“Yes, and I need everyone mentioned in the will to be present.” She smiled down at Deidra like she was a petulant child. “Everyone ready?” Lauryn went back to her seat that was a little too chummy with the pastor who did everything he could to avoid making eye contact with Deidra.
“We are here today to for the reading of the last will and testament of Marrietta âMe-Ma' Banks.
“Can we just get to the good part? I'm not planning to be here all day,” Deidra snapped making hand motions for Lauryn to hurry the fuck up.
“Excuse me ma'am. I will not have you snapping your fingers or disrespecting me in my place of business.” Mrs. Shelton addressed Deidra, “Now please have a seat or I will have security escort you out of the building.” This wasn't one of those born with a silver-spoon in her mouth attorney's, Mrs. Shelton had grown up in one of the worst housing projects in Richmond and had grown up with a lot of Deidra's in her day and she was not about to be talked down to.
“That's right, you tell her Mrs. Shelton! Yes, our mother is not known for her patience.” Bunny laughed at the sight of seeing someone shut her mother down, “She is not known for her patience,” Bunny added pointing to Deidra.
“Yeah, she has other qualities, like making babies she don't want nothing to do with.” Ginger who had had just about enough of Deidra's nasty comments decided he had nothing to lose by fighting back. “Is there anyway I can legally make my mother divulge witch sperm donor is my father?”
“Please, can we just do this one thing for the matriarch of our family without turning it into some high school drama?” Simone had way too much on her mind like getting back to addressing her health crisis, a possible surgery, going back to work, and probable homelessness, just to name a few.
“I will not be disrespected by none of you little bitches. Mark my words,” Diedra snapped and instead of sending her venom in the direction of one of her children she glared at the pastor still not understanding what the hell business he had with her mother. Although Lauryn knew exactly what had been written on the papers since they were executed not that long ago, she made a show of skimming the document as if looking for the right place to start.
“Mrs. Banks left a very detailed will with everyone present represented.” Ginger and Tallhya shared a look of glee excited for the windfall when they thought no one was paying attention. Every one of them knew that Me-Ma kept her money tight so there was bound to be a flow in a few minutes. All four of the grandkids would have gladly exchanged whatever she had left them in the will for another week or month or year with the woman who had raised them, loved them, and taught them to believe in the lord even when they didn't want to.
“Go on what did she leave us?” the biggest mouth in the room pushed.
“To my youngest granddaughter, Ginger, yes I know I gave you a hard time, but I love you just as much as all the others and if that's what you want your name to be then so be it. I leave you my family Bible and that old Louie whoever his name is purse that you told me is worth so much money. I also left you whatever you want out of my closet 'cause your Me-Ma sure had some good taste.”
“Wait, she got left some old-ass clothes?” Deidra burst out laughing doubled over in hysteria. “She damn near left you the closet you flew the fuck out of.” The rest of the grandchildren had to stand in solidarity with Ginger, which was actually hard because Deidra had some serious jokes. Simone and Bunny shot their mother dirty looks, but all she did was roll her eyes and motion for the lawyer to hurry the hell up.
“To my Tall . . . Tall . . . Tallhaaa . . . Tallha . . .” she tripped over her tongue trying to sound out the name.
“She know her damn name, keep going,” Deidra had enough of all this hemming and hawing to last a lifetime. Lauryn turned to Tallhya apologetic before continuing.
“Its not my fault she gave me a name that nobody can pronounce.” Her eyes rolled at her mother, who had already made it clear that she was not to be toyed with under any circumstances.
“Your grandmother left you all of her cookware and her recipe books. She also bequeathed you her record collection.” Tallhya really just wanted her grandmother back and at the mention of inheriting her recipes, the ones she had taught her to cook by hand she collapsed into a blubbering mess.
“The rest of you might as well join her 'cause none of you are getting anything either.”
By the time the attorney got to Deidra she was all, but celebrating her good fortune. “Read it and weep you suckers!” she sneered before Mrs. Shelton started reading aloud.
“The house and all of my money I leave to the church, the one place that has given me solace in my life. I would like to appoint Pastor Cassius Street as the executor of my entire estate.”
“What the fuck is this bullshit!” Simone screamed out sounding frighteningly like her mother and not at all like herself.
“No! My mother loved me. She would have never left me with nothing. Let me see that paper.” Deidra grabbed the paper and tried to decipher what the hell it meant.
“Ladies, God always has a plan and it's our job as human beings to trust that. This is what Me-Ma Banks wanted so we must respect that.” It only took two seconds for Deidra to begin to beat the shit out of him before Lauryn and Bunny were able to pull her off of Cassius who seemed way too concerned with the state of his appearance than the beat down he was about to receive.
“I can't step out of here in a wrinkled suit.”
“Ain't this some shit!” Bunny interjected with her outrage, too.
-29-
Bunny had already lost three days feeling sorry for herself. The clock was already counting down and she knew that Ghostman would not be up to giving her more time. He had that shoot your ass over nothing vibe as it was witnessed by the way he killed Tariq over messing with his money. After the complete nightmare of the reading of the will she decided to drive back to the apartment hell bent on getting out from under this mess. There had to be some kind of solution and she was intent on finding it. Nobody knew that Spoe was dead so she decided to work that in her favor. As she pulled into the garage the sight of Spoe's car parked in his space, like he was about to get into it and go about his day broke her all the way down. She had to sit in her car dry heaving tears streaming down her face until she could compose herself enough to move. That's when this thought hit her. She would sell her car.
Thirty minutes later she pulled into the Porsche dealership on the Midlothian Turnpike. She hadn't parked good when two hungry salesmen rushed out to greet her smelling their latest mark.
“I'm looking for Rusty Johnston,” luckily she had found the card of the salesman that sold the car tucked inside a manual in the glove compartment.
“Nice to see you again,” the salesmen said. The guy didn't remember that the car had been a surprise and he'd never laid eyes on Bunny in his life. That being said, no one is saying he wasn't happy to see her though.
“I'd like to sell my car.” An accomplished liar Bunny spun some story about needing to leave town and that's why she had to sell the car.
“I'm sorry, but you don't own the car,” he explained this basic fact to a stunned Bunny who remembered the day five months ago when Spoe had opened the garage and shown her the matching Porsche's.
“But it was a present. You can't loan somebody a present.”
“No, but Mr. Thomas thought you would want a new car next year so he paid off the three year lease agreement up front. That way you can keep it that long if you wanted, but in case you wanted to upgrade or get a new car you could.”
“So I don't own the car?” Bunny sounded stunned and honestly, didn't get it. The guy was obviously loaded and he paid in cash, which any good salesman knows not to question even if it appeared really suspicious.
“No, ma'am.”
“Did he lease his car, too?”
“Yes, ma'am he did.”
“Thank you,” Bunny got up, ignoring his suggestions to check out the latest models. And for the first time since she got the car when she got in it all she thought about was what a worthless piece of shit it had turned out to be. She had to find out a way to come up with that money.
When Bunny got back to the house she started looking around for any and everything that she could sell to make money. There were so many guys that tried to bite Spoe's style. He lived for Gucci, Louie, Guiseppi, and Tom Ford, which made sense because he and Bunny liked to floss. He has mad style and a wallet to satisfy his appetite. Lots of other men were hating on him and Bunny realized they would probably pay top dollar for his clothes until it hit her that she couldn't run around selling his things. That would look really suspicious. No, she had to be smart about this and not run around half cocked looking crazy. She had already showed her hand to the car salesman so the last thing she could do now was to have one of their leased Porsche's go missing.
She remembered that in Spoe's watch box there were half a dozen of the finest time pieces money could buy; a Rolex, two Cartiers, a Franck Mueller, Hublot, and a Patek Phillippe his crown jewel that was totally iced out. She crumbled at the idea of parting with them and emotionally felt herself start to crumble inside. She didn't know why she hesitated to sell these, but she had been with Spoe each time he had purchased one and the look on his face, a kid buying a new toy had been priceless. Selling these watches felt like she was giving up a part of Spoe, but as hard as she tried to find a solution in the end she didn't have a choice. She knew a pretty good fence that could get her top dollar so she gave him a call and they arranged to meet the next day.
That next morning Bunny was getting herself ready to meet with Billy the fence when her phone started blowing up. Ginger called worried about her because she'd just seen on the news that two bodies had been fished out of the James River.
“One of them is Spoe's friend Tariq. Where is Spoe?”
“I don't know, where he is.”
“Do you think, his body could be in the James River too and maybe it's washed down to the Bay? I know that happened to one of my lover's cousin's homeboys.”
“I don't know. All I know is that Spoe and Tariq left together, going on a job.”
“Are you all right?” Ginger told her sounding more upset than Bunny, but of course she already had this information so it didn't come as a surprise.
“Yeah, I know,” she answered sounding weary as someone started banging on her door. “Ging, let me call you back.” She hung up and opened the door unaware of the shit storm the information about Spoe's death would start.
“All right bitch, get the fuck out of my son's apartment,” Spoe's mother, Wanda screamed as she stood in the doorway glaring at her. “That is unless you want me to throw your skinny-ass out?” Spoe's family had never much cared for Bunny especially since Spoe stopped paying all their bills and giving them as much money as they ungrateful asses felt they were entitled to. They felt that since there was a change in his behavior shortly after him and Bunny officially got together, it was because of her. Before she shacked up with Spoe he spoiled his mama, two sisters, and their numerous kids no matter how obnoxious they were. He didn't seem to care that they were using him and always had their hands out demanding he buy them more things, pay their rent and send them on trips. To be perfectly honest they treated him like shit and it wasn't until Bunny came along and showed him how he was supposed to be treated that he stopped caring in to his family's demands. She not only took care of him, but worried about his well being and showed him a kind of love he never got from his family or even his mother.
While his family didn't care how he got his money Bunny did and would remind him that they had enough and that he should think of quitting that life and going straight. She forced him to reevaluate the selfishness of his family, which led to him having a real come to Jesus moment that culminated with him pulling away from his family and cutting them off from the Bank of Spoe. When Spoe stopped coming around and wasn't taking their call, they all blamed Bunny. To say they were salty or bitter about being cut off was an understatement. As more time past and they saw Bunny driving around town in her flashy car, they hated her with all their might.
“You heard me bitch. You ain't deaf are you?” his mother sneered. Now under normal circumstances Bunny would have whipped her ass right there, but Bunny wasn't a dumb bitch. Wanda had both of her ghetto-ass daughters with her and Bunny knew she couldn't fight all three of them. They all stood there frowning, itching to take her down.
“If you don't get the fuck out of my face,” Bunny said wanting to slam the door on them, but before she could stop them they had already pushed themselves inside. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“All this shit in here belonged to my son and we're going to take all of it .”
“That's right you gold-digging bitch!” Shanay, Spoe's oldest sister placed both hands on her hips, staring down Bunny.
“Let's just kick her ass,” Li'l Moni, the baby balled up her fist and tried to scare Bunny.
“You come near me and that shit will not end well!” Bunny warned them. She had already gone through too much and wasn't about to let them intimidate her. “This right here at this moment is not what you want. I'm trying to compose myself out of respect for Spoe but right now you need to just leave me the fuck alone!”
“Now, I know that Spoe loved you and would want you to have some of his things, but you are not going to threaten me.”
“Bitch probably took all his money, too,” Li'l Moni snapped trying to rile up her mother and older sister.
“We should call the police,” Shanay insisted to the mother. “Throw this greedy-ass thot up out of here.”
“Really?” Bunny sneered. “And how exactly are you going to explain your brother's income? I can prove that I live here so there is nothing you can do to get me out.”
“That's the way you want to play this?” Wanda remarked giving her the stink eye.
“We are taking everything that belongs to Spoe so you need to move your ass out of the way.” Li'l Moni faked like she was about to hit Bunny whose hands shot up in defense. They all burst out laughing clowning her. Then they shoved passed Bunny and stormed into the bedroom and started grabbing all of Spoe's things.
She couldn't believe these vultures. Less than an hour after hearing about his death they were there stealing all his shit.
“Dammit!” Bunny said to herself freaking out at the realization Spoe's jewelry box was within reach. She had taken it out earlier to get everything ready to meet up with Billy so it wasn't in the safe where it normally would be. She grabbed the box and was about to throw it under the bed when Wanda snatched it out of her hand.
“You tryin'a be sneaky bitch?” Wanda said as she pushed Bunny to the floor. She sat on the bed and looked in the box. She didn't say a word, but the look on her face was as if she had just won the lottery.