Every Woman Needs a Wife (6 page)

Brandi had invited William Spencer; he had taken the liberty of bringing Julie, the new toy, twenty-five years his junior, to the anniversary party—probably knowing Bettye would be there. The balls of the Spencer men
were big enough to substitute as doughnuts on a broken-down vehicle.

Bettye leaned over and said, “You know, William’s going to direct Vernon on how to shaft you on this one. I’d let Avie get a head start if I were you. Mother’s on the side of truth and justice.”

Brandi lifted the glass saying, “Amen to that! I have no intention of being written off as some embittered, jealous, paranoid woman.”

Avie appeared next to them, wearing a navy power suit, and powder blue blouse, which complemented her creamy, honey-colored skin. She wore her auburn hair pulled up into a love knot, accentuating her almond-shaped eyes and round face. “With your level of proof,” Avie said grimly, “you’ll get everything you want.”

“I only want what I deserve,” Brandi said softly, an uneasy feeling settling into the pit of her stomach as she took in the lawyer’s hard glare.

Avie turned to Brandi. “And that’s
everything
. And I’m going to make sure you get it.”

Although her specialty was commercial real estate, Avie Davidson looked at marriage as a contract and, just like in corporate America, if someone didn’t live up to their end—they had to pay. It was obvious that Avie was still angry at Vernon for trying to cut her out of doing work for The Perfect Fit. Brandi had fought hard to keep her friend as part of their new business venture, but Vernon had insisted on using a friend of his from college. Avie had checked over the “friend’s” work a few times and caught several fatal flaws. When she checked the billing records and found the man had milked them better than a Wisconsin maid, Vernon had to relent. He was willing to let bygones be bygones, but Avie could hold a grudge so long it could become its own universe. Vernon would need more than a good lawyer to escape her clutches on this one—he’d need two extra pair of asses. Avie knew how to extract a pound of flesh from each cheek.

“Where are the girls?” Bettye asked, watching as all the men, except Donny and Thomas, gathered on the far side of the dining room with Vernon in the center, fielding questions like some rock star.

Brandi grinned over her glass. “They’re sleeping at Avie’s house with her three hellions.”

Avie’s eyebrows drew in. “Who are you calling hellions?”

“It wasn’t
my
children who flooded the living room with the garden hose,” Brandi shot back.

Her friend’s lips curved into a sheepish grin. “Oh, well, that’s different.”

Brandi chuckled, saying, “I didn’t want them here just in case things got ugly.”

“With Donny here?” her friend said, eyeing the animated male crowd. “I wish Vernon would show his natural Black behind. I remember the last time those two got into it. Your brother locked his butt in the trunk for an hour.”

Bettye looked over her glass of wine at her son. “Vernon will think twice before letting what’s in his pants mess up his home life the next time he gets married.”

Avie turned to the older woman, saying, “If he can afford a next time.”

Brandi looked at Avie, seeing the hard glint in her hazel eyes. Knowing Avie, she had probably already started calculating how much they’d drag out of him in court. Brandi hated to disappoint her friend, but she didn’t want a knock-down, drag-out fight. She just wanted justice—her way. And the truth be told, her spur-of-the-moment idea of moving the mistress here would really ram that lesson home. Too bad she hadn’t been serious earlier. Seeing all the men getting on Vernon’s case was better than anything she could do on her own.

Donny changed the record, then danced over to the solarium entrance where they stood watching everything. He pulled Brandi away from Bettye and Avie, and onto the dance floor filled with women. She danced freely to the blaring music as champagne flowed like the Nile. Vernon sat in the corner, nursing a drink while his friends stayed crowded around him like concert security, making Brandi’s relatives move to another part of the house.

Brandi sang along with Peabo Bryson, moving smoothly in a side-by-side, stepping rhythm with her brother, singing, “
Imagine the bluest ocean. Imagine the stars at night…”
”

The doorbell rang, barely audible over the music. Brandi checked her
watch, and did a quick mental scan of the guest list. Everyone who was supposed to be at the party had already arrived.

Tori answered the door, and seconds later her thick frame came scurrying over to Brandi. “Hey, it’s some chick for you.”

The music kicked into high gear with everyone cheering the beginning of the Cha-Cha Slide.

Dancing her way to the door, Brandi flung it open and then froze.

Tanya stood on the doorstep. Her red lips curved into a soft smile as she leaned in and whispered in a sexy voice, “Honey, I’m home.”

B
randi’s eyes narrowed as their gazes locked. Though she wore a leather jacket, the breeze lifted Tanya’s sheer blouse, then pasted it to her body. She held Vernon’s leather wallet in one hand. Brandi pulled the door closed as she stepped outside onto the concrete porch, folding her arms across her chest. “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here.”

“No more nerve than you had showing up at my place,” Tanya said with a haughty toss of her mane.

The woman had a point. But then again, Brandi had every right.
She
was the wife!

Brandi inhaled the scent of magnolias from the tree directly in front of her home. “So you came here expecting…what?”

Tanya held the wallet out to Brandi. “Actually, I figured that since you didn’t have much success keeping your husband, and I didn’t have much success landing one of my own, maybe being your wife might be a better idea all around.”

Good point. And one that might bear some thought
.

Brandi plucked the wallet from the woman’s pale hand, opened it, removed the cash, and counted it. As an afterthought, she gave Tanya half. “Finders keepers.” She tucked the cash in her bra and tossed the leather wallet, aiming for an obscure spot in the bushes.

Tanya snatched it from mid-air, took out his driver’s license and the credit cards, and handed them to Brandi, saying, “Identity theft. You’ll still need him to have good credit at some point.”

“Good thinking,” Brandi replied, tucking the gold American Express, the Diner’s Club, Visa, and MasterCard in her bra next to the cash. “What happened with Vernon?”

Tanya let out a long, weary sigh. “He told me that I couldn’t stay in the house unless I continued to sleep with him. And I told him that I had a better offer on the table anyway.”

“Mine?”

Tanya grinned, shrugging as she said in a humored tone, “But of course.” She leaned back on the bricks, resting a stiletto-clad foot against the concrete. “If he slept around on you, there’s no telling what would happen when my turn came. What goes around comes around. I would’ve never wasted my time if I had known he was married. So my last words to him were, ‘I’ll be seeing you around.’”

Brandi grinned, feeling a sudden sense of elation as a dynamic plan came to mind. “He just didn’t know that he’d be seeing you around at his house.”

The door swung open. Donny poked his head out, scowling. “Hey, lil’ sis, you all right?”

His gaze traveled the length of Tanya’s miniskirt-wrapped body, long legs that didn’t seem to end at her waist, then up to her breasts.
Real or plastic?
Brandi wondered. Only her cosmetic surgeon would know for sure.

“This is Tanya,” Brandi said with a flourish.

Donny winced as thick lips turned into a frown. “He went
white?
What was he thinking?”

Tanya glared back at him.

Brandi grinned. “Same thing he was thinking with.”

Laughter followed as he pulled his head back in just as the music kicked into “
Take it back now y’all. One hop this time…
” before fading once again when the door closed.

Things were shaping up to be a bit more complicated than Brandi had expected. She had wanted to humiliate Vernon, ending things in a way that would make him feel her pain. When she talked to Avie two months ago, she never thought things would turn out quite like this.

I
t had started with a simple, “Girl, he’s been cheating on me.”

Avie sighed, swiveling in the green leather office chair, asking, “What do you mean he’s cheating? Who’s cheating?”

“Vernon! I know the signs: late nights, last-minute travel plans, hanging up the cell phone when I enter a room.” Brandi blinked back tears. “Then there’s new clothes, as if he didn’t already have enough to last him at least three lifetimes.”

Avie leaned forward on the oak desk. “And new cologne?”

“Pheromone for Men.” Brandi’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her friend. “How did you know?”

“Classics, baby, classics. I think you should whip out the knife and go Lorena Bobbitt on his ass.” Her thinly arched eyebrows lifted into half moons. “Try it the next time he wants some nookie.”

“The only time we have sex is when I ask for it.”

“You’re kidding!” Avie leaned back in her chair. “The Black Stallion?”

Brandi laughed at her reference to Vernon’s college nickname. “The Stallion hasn’t been riding the range or grazing the pastures lately. And when he does, it’s more like a ‘you need to be grateful I’m still with your ass’ kind of thing. God, I’m tired of that.”

“No doubt.”

“I’m going to stop asking, and start handling things the old-fashioned way,” she said.

Avie laughed, a soft, silky sound. “Now, I feel you on that one.”

“No, you don’t!” Brandi shot back. “You’re getting your fair share on the regular. When was the last time you masturbated?”

The lawyer blushed, dipping her head sheepishly before she stood. “Well, we’re not going to get into that. I have to go to a closing,” she said. “Why don’t you come back to my office on Thursday and we’ll discuss your options.”

“What time?”

“About ten.” She flipped open the calendar on her desk. “No, make it twelve, and I’ll spring for lunch.”

♥♥♥

Brandi walked back into the law firm of Davidson, Royal, and Payne, slipped into the soft leather seat across from the desk, and kicked off her heels before propping her tired feet on the desk.

Avie Davidson reached out, swiping the feet away, forcing them back onto the carpet with a solid thud.

Brandi shifted in the seat, placing one leg up under her. “I don’t do that when you come to my office.”

“I haven’t
been
to your new office.”

“My point exactly,” Brandi said, leveling her gaze on her friend.

“Hey, when you decided to move all the way out in Bumfuck, Egypt, you knew I wasn’t coming out there that much. It’s almost an hour out of the way and certainly nowhere near a courthouse.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah” Brandi waved off the excuse with a single hand. “And South Chicago isn’t all that far.”

“Add in parking-lot traffic coming from downtown and it is.”

“You’re just lazy, Heifer,” Brandi said, giving her friend a wide grin.

“Call me what you want, but your tail can get down here in twenty; it takes an hour the other way around.”

Brandi reached out, scooping up the blue glass paperweight globe in her hand. “Well, I haven’t asked for any nookie, and now I’m sitting home brewing like a bitch in heat while that bastard’s out giving it to some other woman. I’m the only one respecting our vows. How fair is that?”

“Girl, you need to follow him to her house and beat that ass,” Avie said, propping her feet on the desk. “That woman knows he’s married.”

“You know, I’m not so sure about that,” Brandi replied, tossing the globe back and forth in her hands, then casting a cursory glance at her friend’s feet. “And why do you get to do that?”

“Because it’s my damn office,” Avie replied with a little shake of her shoulders. “I can drop my drawers and take a crap right on the wood and nobody can tell me different.”

“Might lose a few clients, though.”

Avie shrugged as she grinned. “Yeah, there is that.” Her hazel eyes followed the trail of her favorite paperweight from one of Brandi’s hands to the other and back.

“Since we’ve expanded and moved the business, he spends so much time away from home that he could probably pull off having more than one woman. The only proof he has that he’s doing what he says is that new accounts are cropping up—and not just in Chicago.”

Avie reached out, snatching the globe from mid-air and setting it safely back on its perch.

“So I’m not as angry with her—he probably lied to her, too. If there’s any place my anger should be directed, it’s at him for not being satisfied with what he has, or at myself for putting up with this far longer than necessary.”

The door opened and Avie’s teenage apprentice secretary brought in two Corner Bakery box lunches. She thanked the girl before passing one to Brandi. “I thought by now he’d change and get over his midlife crisis.”

“Girl, he hasn’t even made it to midlife yet.” Brandi sighed, then looked down at the tan-and-black cardboard box in her hands. “And trust you to be cheap on lunch. Box lunches.”

“You can complain or you can watch me eat yours, too.”

Brandi snatched the box from Avie’s fingers, knowing her friend would make good on the threat and wouldn’t gain a single pound. God just wasn’t fair with this metabolism crap. Brandi could sniff a piece of German chocolate cake through a closed refrigerator door and gain a pound.

She placed her lunch on the corner of the desk and began pacing the
room. “I’ve been silent and it’s been almost six months since he started with this woman.” Brandi turned her back to Avie and gazed out on the foggy view of the Chicago River. “You know, I’m through acting like the content little wife. I’ve done everything a wife should, but Vernon’s still dipping his stick somewhere else.”