A Bona Fide Gold Digger (4 page)

M
ilan awoke from her midday nap feeling refreshed. For a scant few seconds, she felt serene and at peace. But when she adjusted a pillow and snuggled into it, she caught a glimpse of the overturned chair from the corner of her eye. The gaping hole in the back was a disconcerting reminder that something wasn’t quite right. She groaned as her mind peeled away the shadowy layers and revealed her life, in shambles.

Distressed, she recalled the bank officer’s threatening words—
prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law
.
Oh God, my life is ruined!

She sat up, grabbed the phone, and called her sister. The instant Sweetie picked up, Milan launched into a hysterical rambling. “They’re out to get me!”

“Who?”

“The board,” Milan shouted. “If I don’t pay off the balance they’re threatening to have me arrested. In ten days,” she added in a high-pitched wail.

“Well, pay off the damn balance. How much do you owe?”

“Twenty-seven thousand.”

“Dollars?”

“Yesss,” Milan whined.

“How the hell did you put that much—”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, do you have enough saved to pay those people back?”

Milan shook her head as if her sister could see her.

“Milan?”

“No, Sweetie. I had nine thousand dollars saved, but the bank froze my money. I can’t write a check, I can’t get cash from the ATM…” Distraught, Milan covered her face. “What am I going to do? I think the police are going to come knocking if I don’t pay up.”

“Milan, calm down. Why would the police get involved in credit card fraud?”

“Oh, you don’t think they’ll get involved?” Milan asked, sounding hopeful.

Sweetie became quiet. “Um…don’t hold me to my word,” she stammered. “It doesn’t sound like something the police would be interested in. The company will probably just take you to court.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” Sweetie admitted. “I said don’t hold me to my word.”

“Well, then stop giving me bad information. That bank official made a horrible threat. She told me that if I don’t pay back the money, the board will have me prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Now, that sounds serious, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it does,” Sweetie admitted, “real serious,” she added gravely. “Especially coming from someone who works at the bank. I mean, you don’t want to commit fraud and involve a bank. That’s like a federal offense, isn’t it?”

Milan sighed. “I don’t know anything about crime. But thanks a lot for making me feel better,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Look, Milan, in my opinion, you should pack your things and just bounce. Get the hell outta there as soon as possible.”

“And go where?”

Sweetie quietly mulled over the question. “I guess you’ll have to come over here for a while,” she offered with a loud sigh.

“That sigh sure makes me feel welcome.”

“You know you’re more than welcome, but you’re so high maintenance. My place is too small. It’s too small and too cluttered, according to you. And you always say the kids get on your nerves…”

Everything Sweetie had said was correct, but what other choice did she have? Milan interrupted her sister with a sigh. “Sweetie, I think I can survive a couple nights at your place. I should be able to come up with some sort of plan in a day or so.”

“Okay, sounds good. Now, go pack everything that can fit inside your car.”

“What about my furniture and the rest of my things?”

“Milan! Stop worrying about material things that you can’t use. I think it’ll look really suspicious if you try to drag furniture out of there without notifying the rental office. Is that furniture worth your freedom?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. Now, get moving. I would never forgive myself if I gave you bad advice and the po-po showed up at your door.”

“I’m on my way,” Milan said, her voice shaking.

Two hours later, Milan burst through Sweetie’s front door, talking a mile a minute.

“Slow down, stop talking so fast,” Sweetie chastised her younger sister.

“I swear to God, Sweetie. Somebody was following me while I was driving here. I’m scared to go back out to get the boxes out of my trunk,” Milan ranted as she yanked off her black Christian Dior shades. She untied the silk scarf that was draped over her head and wrapped around her neck.

Sweetie held up her hand. “Before you open your mouth and say another word, I have to know…”

“What?”

“Why the hell are you looking like Whitney Houston in
The Bodyguard?
”

“I didn’t want, uh,” Milan stuttered. “I didn’t want anyone to recognize me. I’ll have to travel incognito until this misunderstanding is cleared up.”

“Well, if somebody followed you here, I guess the cover-up didn’t work,” Sweetie said with a snicker.

“Sweetieeee,” Milan griped. “This is serious.”

“I know. I know. I’m just trying to make you laugh. I don’t like seeing my baby sister all scared like this.” Sweetie opened her arms.

Milan fell into them. “Oh, Sweetie—” The words caught in her throat and tears began to trail down her face. “Sweetie, I’m in so much trouble.”

“It’s going to be all right, Milan.” Sweetie patted her sister’s back. “We’ll figure out something. Those board members hated the fact that it took a young, talented sister to get that place on track. If they gave you the credit you deserve, they’d have to look at their own sorry butts and admit a black woman is smarter than all of them put together.”

Milan pulled away, wiped her eyes, and gave Sweetie a look of surprise. “You know, you can be so wise sometimes, you amaze me. Your insight is astounding. Sweetie, I just wish you’d live up to your potential.” Milan was instantly sorry she’d opened her mouth. Her words definitely sounded more like criticism than praise and judging by Sweetie’s expression, she was none too pleased with the lopsided compliment.

“Don’t start. I’m not the one in trouble. Like I told you before, my life is just fine.”

“I know, Sweetie, but I just wish—”

“Milan, you better wish your butt doesn’t end up behind bars. This is not about me, so don’t start trying to fix something that’s not broke.”

“Broken,” Milan corrected her sister.

“Watch it, lil’ sis,” Sweetie cautioned. “Don’t make me change my mind about letting you stay here awhile. I’m trying to help you out and here you go trying to change the way I talk. If you wasn’t frontin’ all the time and acting like you forgot where you came from, you wouldn’t be in this big mess in the first place.”

Milan didn’t view her desire to forget her North Philly roots as being a character flaw, but she kept her opinion to herself. Being on the run and in dire need of a place to hide did not permit her to voice an opposing point of view.

“So, I guess I get to bunk out here on the sofa?” Milan asked, trying to sound as if sleeping in her sister’s living room was as pleasing as a night at a four-star hotel.

“Hell no! I’m not letting you tear up my new couch. You’re gonna have to squeeze in with the boys. Dominic and Diamonte won’t mind sharing their beds,” Sweetie said with a snicker.

“Okay,” Milan said in a meek voice that expressed her feeling of helplessness. For the time being, she was at Sweetie’s mercy.

“How many boxes did you bring? Now, you know you can’t be crowding up my kids’ room with a whole lot of unnecessary stuff,” Sweetie said, jokingly. She and Milan both knew the children’s room was already filled to capacity with the abundance of toys Milan had bought them.

While she really wanted to throw a tantrum at the very suggestion that she share personal space with two snot-nosed kids, Milan attempted a smile, pretending to enjoy her sister’s humor. She’d never be able to think straight, let alone write a book in Sweetie’s wild household. Without a doubt, she had to resolve this atrocious situation, pronto!

Sleeping on the floor inside Sweetie’s ancient Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bag, the one her sister had taken to the horrible city-run summer camp the two sisters had attended when they were kids, seemed a better choice than trying to sleep comfortably on a twin bed that reeked of urine. Sweetie was too lazy to toilet train her two heathens and insisted on purchasing the cheap generic brand of Pull-Ups for three-year-old Dominic and two-year-old Diamonte. Suffocating from piss fumes that were as strong as ammonia, Milan seriously doubted she could last another night. There was nothing she could do except borrow some money from her mother so she could get a hotel room.
Oh God!
Enduring her mother’s freakin’ interrogation might be worse than being confined inside a pissy bedroom.

But paying for a hotel room with cash wouldn’t work. The desk clerk would want to see valid identification, which would blow her cover and possibly have law enforcement hot on her trail.
Oh Lord, what am I going to do?

A black streak darting across the semi-darkened bedroom caused Milan to bolt upright. Then a rustling sound in the children’s closet caused her heart to pound.
Damn, Sweetie has mice,
she thought disgustedly as she lay down, zipping her body including her head inside the sleeping bag. Being encased inside a sleeping bag was bad enough, but the continuous squeaking made her terrified that the mice inside the closet would become bold and scamper across her body. Resignedly, Milan dragged the sleeping bag on top of Dominic’s smelly bed.

It was beyond her comprehension how her sister could bear to live in such an appalling housing development. Before finally falling to sleep, Milan made up her mind. She would not spend another night in Sweetie’s funky, mice-infested hovel!

When Milan woke up the next morning, she was pleasantly surprised that Sweetie’s household was fairly quiet. The only sound she heard was her sister’s voice. Somehow, she’d managed to sleep through the early morning chaos as Sweetie got her husband and two boisterous children fed and dressed and out the door to work and the day care center.

As Milan sleepily stumbled to the bathroom, she heard Sweetie’s loud laughter as she yakked on the phone with one of her numerous unproductive, unemployed girlfriends. When Sweetie spotted Milan, she waved a hand and motioned her inside the kitchen.

Milan sucked her teeth and continued her trek to the bathroom. Whatever idle gossip Sweetie wanted to share would have to wait until she relieved her bladder. When Milan came out the bathroom, she tried to slip past Sweetie. She really wasn’t interested in hearing any of the latest neighborhood rumors that Sweetie and her circle of idiot girlfriends found so fascinating.

Sweetie muffled the phone. “Come here, Milan. Girl, I just found the answer to your prayers.”

Yeah, right!
Had she not been addicted to caffeine, she would have ignored Sweetie and gone back to her nephew’s smelly twin bed, but the strong desire for coffee motivated Milan to move toward the kitchen. She grimaced when she remembered that Sweetie did her grocery shopping at the neighborhood Sav-A-Lot, a grocery store that sold mostly generic brands of food items.
How did I forget to pack a bag of Starbucks? Damn, life sucks!
Doomed to ingest an abominably bad cup of java, Milan poured the weak-looking coffee her sister had brewed and flopped wearily into a kitchen chair.

“I’ll call you back after I talk to my sister,” Sweetie said and hung up the phone. She gave Milan a devilish grin.

“Who was that?” Milan asked, not really caring. She frowned as she sipped the terrible-tasting coffee.

“That was my girlfriend Tookie. Guess what?”

“What?” Milan murmured, disinterestedly.

“I know you don’t wanna sleep in there with the kids and I think I’ve found you a perfect place to hide out while you’re untangling this mess you’re in.”

Milan seriously doubted that Sweetie had an appropriate solution, but she arched a brow, indicating a half-hearted willingness to listen to the undoubtedly ridiculous plan Sweetie and her friend, Tookie had concocted.

“Tookie’s mom, Miss Elise, works for this rich dude. He’s sick with some kind of illness that requires around-the-clock care.”

“I didn’t know Tookie’s mother was a licensed nurse,” Milan said, wondering how she could possibly fit into what was already sounding like a half-baked plan.

“Miss Elise isn’t a nurse. She’s the old dude’s companion. She sits there with him reading the paper, playing music, and whatnot for him. He has a registered nurse who takes care of him, but he’s rich enough to afford a cook and a companion, too.”

“So how do I fit in?” Milan asked skeptically.

“Well, Tookie said the old dude’s nurse is real bossy and she’s starting to get on Miss Elise’s nerves. But the shit hit the fan when she started bugging Miss Elise to put in more hours. She wants her to stay overnight but Miss Elise said that heifer can kiss her ass. She’s planning to quit but she doesn’t wanna leave old boy hangin’.”

“A companion!” Milan scoffed. “It’s absurd for you to think I’d even consider such a ridiculous job.” Milan grimaced and then shivered with disdain. “You know I’m over-qualified for that position. It’s totally beneath me.”