Wayward Dreams (3 page)

“Let me tell you a little story,” Erica Lane began. “I've been where you are, and I can probably tell you exactly how you got here. This,” she tapped the file lightly, “tells me exactly how you got here. And it didn't happen overnight.”

“No, it didn't happen overnight, but I don't think I want to hear your story.” Lips tight, Bianca refused to cry.

“But it did happen, and now you're here in my office. Quiet as it's kept, you share in the blame for it. Every woman needs her own credit history—even women whose men tell them they don't need to worry.” Bianca started up again, but Erica raised a hand to stall her. “I know it's hard, Ms. Coltrane, but I hope you'll accept this in the spirit in which it's offered. I'm not trying to judge you. I already told you that I've been where you are, but the only one who can fix this mess is you.”

“How? I can't even qualify for a loan, now can I?”

“Not based on this.” Brow furrowed, Erica Lane suddenly looked less authoritative and more like an ordinary woman. Spreading her fingers, she brought them down on the desk with a solid thump. “Do you really want to let this be the best you can do for yourself?” When she spoke again, her voice was low, almost conspiratorial. “Did you love him?”

Bianca's eyes widened and her lips parted, but no words followed.

“Did he ever love you?” Bianca's lips moved silently; heartsick, she couldn't find her voice, but the banker wasn't finished. “You can't claim it, can you?”

“No, he never loved me.”

“But you let him do for you, and that's how you came to be here in my office.” Erica was relentless but gentle. “Do you really want to allow this Mr. Payne to control your life like this? He didn't love you, and you know it. Oh, maybe you were in love with the idea of him at one time, but that's just so much…” She brought her fingers together and blew on them, then opened them to release…nothing. “A man who would leave you like this, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him. I wouldn't let him anywhere near my life. But that's just me.”

Bianca huffed and tried to work up a feeling that didn't begin or end with defeat. It didn't work. “You're right.”

“You bet your sweet ass, I am. You show up here asking why. Did you ask
him
?”

“He wouldn't take my calls.” Bianca looked down at the toes of her clammy boots. Fractured pride was the only thing that kept her breathing.

Erica folded her hands on top of the file and asked, “Do you have
any
money? Of your own?”

“Eighty-four dollars and some change.”

“I saw you get out of the Jaguar. Eighty-four dollars won't fill your gas tank.”

Bianca dropped a hand over her eyes.

“Did you even see this coming?” When Bianca peeked at the manager through slit fingers, Erica sighed deeply and shook her head. “He planned this, you know.”

I don't need this!
Bianca slammed a second hand over her eyes. “You think he robbed my store and put me out on the street on the same day to teach me some kind of lesson?” Suddenly on her feet, her hands fell away from her eyes, and fury eclipsed her pain when she slammed her purse to the floor. “Bitch, you're crazy. We're not talking about Superman or James Bond.”

“No, bitch, we're talking about your ass hitting the ground,” the manager snapped back. “We're talking about something a simple man put into place that has you so turned around you don't know which way is up. And now you're sitting here with a stranger trying to make a life out of eighty-four dollars and change.”

“He didn't rob my store.”

“Neither did I. He took your home and your pride, got you out here doing everything short of panhandling and selling little pieces of yourself on a street corner, and you call
me
a bitch? Girl, you might be good-looking, but you need to check your priorities and get over your bitch-fit.”

“I don't have to take this.”

“Yes, you do.” Standing, Erica drew a deep breath and walked around her desk. “Judging by the fact that you're still here, I'm the closest thing you have to a friend right now. Sit down.”

Bianca sat.

“Believe it or not, I've done this dance, too.” Erica rested a hip against her desk and swung one ankle across the other. “Do you have somewhere to go? Friends? Family?” When Bianca shook her head, Erica sighed. “You're not exactly the shelter type, and I can't imagine where you could park that Jag long enough to sleep in it.”

“I have eighty-four dollars.”

“And some change. Yeah, I heard you the first time. You know that might only cover a couple of nights at a really cheap motel, and you'll still need to eat.” When she dropped her hand into her jacket pocket, Erica Lane looked serious. “This is not going to last long. I don't figure you for a McDonald's kind of girl, but maybe it will help you get to family or someone who can help.” She pulled her hand free of the pocket and extended two fifties to Bianca.

Ashamed, Bianca stared at the cash.
I called this woman a bitch, and she's extending herself like this…
“I can't take that.”

“If you don't, you're a bigger fool than the woman who pulled up to that ATM machine looking for cash. That woman at least knew that eighty-four dollars wouldn't take her very far. Call it a loan, if that will make you feel better.”

Still hesitating, Bianca stared at the bills a moment longer before taking them. “A loan, then. I'll get this back to you.”

“Not a problem.”

Bianca stood, the manager's kindness galling her. Wanting to be anywhere other than where she was, she pulled the ATM card from her pocket and folded it back and forth until it finally broke. She laid the two pieces on the desk. “I'm going to handle me from now on.”

“It won't be easy, but it really can be done,” Erica Lane whispered, watching Bianca's stiff back as she left the office. Bianca walked straight out of the door, looking neither right nor left. The manager's smile was small and hopeful. Sweeping the broken card pieces into the wastebasket, she sighed. Maybe this woman really would make it. She hoped so.

I am going to handle me, from now on
, Bianca vowed again, unlocking her car door. Sitting in the driver's seat, she had to admit the truth of Erica Lane's words: KPayne had planned this! Looking at the wrinkled bills Erica had given her, she felt awash with shame and gratitude.
But this is definitely a loan
, she told herself,
and I am going to get it back to her. And she's right—he planned this.

Damn him and his squeak-talking mama!

As much as she wanted to put some of the blame on Catherine Reynolds Payne, Bianca knew she was wrong. Catherine was a snob, not a ride-or-die, out-for-vengeance cutthroat. No, KPayne hadn't turned to his mother for any of this; this was all him.

And I let him do it!

Bianca separated herself from the Jaguar and slammed the car door. Late afternoon sun glittered in the western sky, shining and silhouetting the high Atlanta skyline, and she dipped her hand into her purse for her sunglasses. Slipping them over her eyes, she left the car behind and began to walk with no particular destination in mind.

KPayne or one of his paid-to-be-right lawyers had to go down to the county office to file for that eviction notice. He had someone pull some strings at the bank to get the money frozen. He had to get my belongings out of the condo. How long did he think about it? A week? Two weeks? All along, looking in my face and planning to dump me as painfully as possible.

Unexpectedly, AJ Yarborough crossed her thoughts. AJ would never have done anything like this—he was too decent. Bianca was stunned by immediate shame, remembering that he had once loved her and she had treated it like a game; and now this. Payback really was a bitch.
Why was it so easy for KPayne to use and discard me?

Her gaze lifted long enough to catch the eyes of an approaching man. His bold stare held until he drew close enough to whisper: “Girl, you know you're so fine, I would drink your dirty bathwater.”

Yeah, right. I've heard that one before.

His step slowed even more and held even with her, laying a hand across his heart. “Ain't nothing in the world I wouldn't do for you.”

That's pretty much what KPayne said—in the beginning.

She pushed the dark glasses up over her eyes and walked away, leaving her admirer lusting in her wake. Headed back toward her parked car, a single thought surged forward:
I could call Julia.
As quickly as the thought occurred, she discarded it. How could she call her sister? They'd shared a mother and childhood, and then everything changed between them.

Standing on the sidewalk with her heart in her throat and her cellphone in her hand, Bianca tried to think. Opening her cellphone, she scrolled through the directory.
Taurean
. Back in the day, Taurean Blaque would have been among the first people she would have thought of. But not anymore. Their breakup had been bitterly decisive.

Ugly breakups had a way of limiting the favors one could ask. Bianca couldn't help the sigh that escaped her—the breakup with AJ had been just as decisive. But the truth was, if she called him now, he would still probably come, but it would only be out of pity. And as bad as things were, she don't think that she could survive the look that she already knew would be in his eyes.

Thumbing the buttons on her phone, she continued to scroll through names until she came to Julia Coltrane, her sister. Julia was nine months younger, but those nine months might as well have been nine light-years. Their lives were totally independent of each other. Different as night and day. Julia was in bed by eight, and Bianca was in a Jag 9x8. The last time they'd seen each other was at John's funeral.

John Leighton was the stepfather who'd raised them—or more correctly, who'd been there until the sisters were both eighteen and on the way to college. Betting that their stepfather was glad that they were less than a year apart in age and out of the house at practically the same time was the last thing Bianca and Julia had agreed upon. Calling Julia would be a mistake.

Bianca found herself back in the parking lot of the now-closed bank.
After four
, she guessed, opening her car door and dropping into the driver's seat. She unzipped her boots and slid her tired feet free. When she tossed the damp boots over the seatback, they landed on the discarded
AJC
the doorman had given her earlier.

She pulled the paper free and smoothed it against her thigh. Dragging a finger along the column headed Money to Loan, she saw an ad for pawnshops, and she creased the paper around the ad that promised “highest prices paid”.

Making her way to the pawnshop was easy. When she pushed the door open, a little brass bell tinkled overhead, just like on TV. Pulling off her jewelry and handing it across the counter, hoping to get enough money to get past the crisis, was harder.

Cursing herself for not wearing more, Bianca snapped the catches on the back of her heavy diamond-studded earrings. Feeling a bit like an old-time stripper, she slipped gold bangles along her arm and onto the glass-topped counter. She plucked a trio of stacked rings from her fingers and, against her better judgment, she let the diamond tennis bracelet KPayne had given her to make up for an argument last month fall heavily beside them when she pulled it from her wrist.

The man behind the counter moved his unlit cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other and looked down at the pile. “Got to test it first, then I can make you an offer. Go ahead and fill out the paperwork while I'm doing that,” he added, sliding the form and a cheap ballpoint pen across the counter. “Need to see your driver's license, too.”

The forms were complete when he returned. Bianca noticed that he'd lit the cigarette and smoke from the burning tobacco made her cough. “Okay,” he said, pushing his shirtsleeves high on his thin arms. “I can take the earrings, the bangles, and the rings,” he said, pushing the bracelet toward her. “Not this, though.”

“But it's a diamond bracelet.” She pushed it back toward him.

He pushed it back. “It's cubic zirconium. Worthless to me, and if you need money, it's worthless to you, too.”

“He told me it was real…”

“I'm sure he did, but the best I can do is give you three hundred, and that's only because of the diamonds.”

That's all?
Bianca brought her hands to her face and made a sound she'd never heard before, something pained and strangled, between a whimper and a scream. The broker just watched. She dropped her hands and looked at the stupid bracelet.

Three hundred is enough cash to get through the immediate crisis, but what about next week? What about my store? Somehow, I have to find a way to hold out…

The pawnbroker came up with a suggestion. “Have you got a car? How about the title to the car?”

“No.” She was going to need transportation and, for all she knew, KPayne might have finagled a way to take it back.

Knowing that not even in desperation would he ever be her type, the pawnbroker pointed to her wrist and stuck to business. “How about that watch? Looks like a Rolex Lady Presidential, and if it's real…”

“It's real,” she snapped. “I can guarantee it.”

“I'm just saying, I can give you a good deal.”

Bianca looked down at her wrist and lightly touched the face of the watch. AJ had loved her when he'd given it to her. “No, I couldn't. It was a gift…”

“If you really need the money, then…”

“I really need the money.”

The man shrugged and the deal was made. With tears in her eyes, Bianca reluctantly fumbled the catch on the watch and finally placed it on the counter.