Millionaire Wives Club (6 page)

“You don’t have to explain anything to him,” Jabril snapped.

“Shut your mouth,” Jaise said sternly.

“You need to shut your mouth!”

“Yo dig,” Officer Asante spat at Jabril, with enough bass in his voice to beat a drum, “let me kick it to you in a language you understand. If you say one more ill-ass thing to your mother, I’ma lock yo’ drunk azz up. Now I hate to see your mother’s pretty face in distress, but you being real foul right now, so calm yo’ li’l ass down. ’Cause true story, you ain’t that bad, thugged out, and on the real you can’t bring it to nobody, so you and all that punk-ass mouth you have can fall back, fa real. Now, if you got other thoughts and you think you that tough then buck.” He paused. “I didn’t think so, trust me, the streets ain’t for you, ’cause you gettin’ caught too soon. Now, you are a man and a man’s job starts with loving and respecting his women, and if you can’t even respect your mother, then you gon’ have some problems. Now be clear, if I see your face on my streets again I’ma make sure you don’t see the sunrise for a long time. Now apologize to your mother, right now.”

“Acting like a damn niggah in the street,” Jaise said, pissed.

“And you”—Detective Asante turned to Jaise and twisted his lips—“what is it with you calling him a niggah every five seconds? You raising a niggah or a man? ’Cause if you raising a man, then you better straighten this shit out. I get tired of seeing these young boys float in and out of here and nobody gives them anything to stand up to. Let him know you have expectations, and this isn’t what you had in mind. You want him in jail or on a job? Because
at the end of the day you’re his mother, so it’s your call. So my suggestion to you is to see what your son is really saying to you underneath all this nonsense and deal with it.”

Jaise looked at Detective Asante in shock, and instead of responding Jabril sucked his teeth.

“You testin’ me, bruh?” The detective looked at Jabril as if he could see through him.

“Nah,” Jabril quickly spat out.

“I didn’t think so. Now, didn’t I tell you to apologize?”

“Sorry,” Jabril mumbled.

“I can’t hear you,” Detective Asante said.

“I said sorry.”

“Sorry who?”

“Ma.”

“For what? And say it like you mean it.”

“For being disrespectful.”

“Now bounce.” He uncuffed him.

Jaise didn’t know whether to say thank you or to cuss the detective out for speaking to her and her son like that. After deciding that Jabril deserved the treatment he received, and maybe she did too, she signed the papers releasing him into her custody and they headed home.

Jabril was quiet the entire ride home. A zillion things raced through Jaise’s mind. She knew she couldn’t lose her son to the streets; the only problem was she didn’t know how he’d gotten there. The last she remembered he was riding in her car in a booster seat with his feet barely touching the floor, and now suddenly and without warning he was sixteen, towering over her, with the body of a man.

“Jabril,” Jaise said as they pulled into a parking space, “I can’t condone your drinking alcohol.”

Jabril looked at his mother, sucked his teeth, slammed the door behind him, and headed into the house.

“Do you wanna smack him again or something?” Bridget
asked, startling Jaise, who had forgotten that Bridget and the camera crew were there. “Let us know,” Bridget carried on, “so Carl here can run in the house first and get a close-up.”

Jaise started to read Bridget, but she quickly changed her mind and decided the drama wasn’t worth it. Instead she opened her front door and slammed it, leaving Bridget and the camera crew outside.

C
haunci sat in the center of her king-size bed, her back resting against the seven-foot-long black leather headboard, with her six-thousand-thread-count sheets caressing the back of her thighs. The evening lights of the New York City skyline bathed her sage bedroom walls as she did her all to focus on the sketched designs for her wedding gown.

Yet no matter how hard she tried to focus or reason with herself that brokering a marriage based on financial security made more sense than marrying for love, she couldn’t nix the loneliness that slowly crept into her chest and hung out there. She hated wondering what it would be like to love again, because it forced her to ponder a series of what-ifs, and she despised that, because in all of her thirty years what-if had turned out to be one great big hopeless motherfucker.

This was why she had accepted the marriage proposal of her silent business partner and lover, Edmon. She knew he loved her, but she also knew that her not being in love with him placed her in the position of control. She wasn’t interested in their situation being
upgraded to romance. She wanted to be a power couple, sharing the perks of money, influence, respect, and good sex.

Love was always easier for Chaunci when she could pretend it didn’t exist, or better yet when she could act as if she didn’t need it, didn’t want it, and wasn’t lying in her bed at night aching for it. She could do without the risk of bruised emotions and hurt feelings. Everything in her life was about business. Marriage, sex, work, play—even the reality show she considered to be a season-long infomercial for her magazine.

“Okay, Mommy, Anty Dextra said it’s time for your party!” Chaunci’s six-year-old daughter, Kobi, pushed Chaunci’s bedroom door open, relaying the message from her au pair. Kobi hung on to the doorknob and swung into the room.

“What are you doing? And what are you wearing?” Chaunci looked at Kobi, who, decked out in a Cinderella gown with a towel wrapped around her neck, was spinning in a circle.

“This my freakum dress.”

“Excuse you?” Chaunci snapped.

Kobi slapped her hand over her mouth. “I mean this is my ball gown.” She curtsied. “Anty Dextra and I just had a tea party. Would you like a cup of tea, ma’dum?” she said in a playful British accent while picking up her mini porcelain teacup.

“No.”

“Why?” Kobi placed the cup to her lips and pretended to sip. “You’re going to be late to Ms. Evan’s party?”

Chaunci rolled her eyes to the ceiling. She couldn’t stand Evan, and the thought that she would have to pretend to like her for the rest of the night was unbearable. As far as Chaunci was concerned, Evan was the mistress of bitches, and the only reason Evan probably wanted Chaunci at the party was so that
Nubian Diva
would cover the event. Chaunci’s magazine was one of the hottest on the stands. It was the only African American magazine that ranked at the top with
Vogue
and
Glamour
, so anybody who was anybody
would of course invite her to their party, especially if they wanted it to be the event of the year.

She looked at the clock and realized she had only an hour to prepare for the evening. “No,” she said, her spirits dragging, “I won’t be late for the party.”

“So what are you going to do at the party?” Kobi climbed into the middle of her mother’s bed as Chaunci sorted through her closet.

“I’m not sure. What do you think I should do?”

Kobi pretended to sip again. “I think you should get us a new French-say.”

“A what?”

“Mommy, the man you’re marrying. French-say.”

“It’s ‘fiancé.’”

“I thought his name was Edmon.” Kobi looked confused. “But anyway, I heard Anty Dextra say on the phone that she doesn’t think Edmon is right for you. I have to agree with her. We need another one.”

Chaunci spun on her heels. “Who said that?”

“Anty Dextra said it. And she said that you needed a real manringo to handle you.”

“Oh, wait a minute, I know she wasn’t talking like that in front of you?!” Chaunci snapped. “Dextra”—she opened her bedroom door—“please come.”

“Mommy,” Kobi whispered, in excitement, “you’re going to get me in trouble. Anty Dextra told me to leave the room when grown folks were talking, but I liked what she was saying, so I stood by the door and listened. Don’t give my secret away, Mommy.” She folded her hands. “Please.”

“You are a little too grown,” Chaunci said, pushing the door closed, as she reluctantly decided to keep her daughter’s secret. “And whatever ‘new’
French-say
I need or don’t need is a little out of your six-year-old league.”

“Huh?” Kobi said, confused. “What does that mean, Mommy? To mind my business?”

“Forget it, Kobi. Just let me get dressed.”

“I wanna see what you’re going to wear,” Kobi insisted, pretending to sip her drink again.

While Kobi sat in the center of Chaunci’s bed, Chaunci pulled on a supertight navy blue velvet corset, which made her D-cup breasts look like an overflowing river of flesh. Her curvaceous hips were complemented by a Dolce and Gabbana eighteenth-century-inspired formal navy chiffon skirt, which draped to the floor and covered her pencil-heel Manolos.

“Mommy.”

“Yes,” Chaunci said as she snapped on her sapphire bangle.

“How come everybody in my class knows their daddy but me?”

“I’m your mommy and your daddy.”

“I told them that and they laughed at me. I had to tell Asia that I would kick her butt if she laughed one more time. And Mommy, I hate to break it to you, but you have to be a man in order to be a daddy. So do you think my daddy, the man-daddy, doesn’t like me?”

Chaunci had always sworn that she would be the type of mother who was open and honest with her child. She promised that she would never speak an ill word about Kobi’s father, but the older Kobi got the harder it was not to say that her father was an asshole. That when Chaunci had told him she was pregnant he had lost his mind and tossed three hundred dollars in the air for an abortion, not caring that Chaunci’s pregnancy was too far along for that.

Chaunci looked at Kobi and thought about ignoring the question altogether, but seeing the intensity with which Kobi watched her she said, “Your daddy is a great man, he loves you, and we’ll talk about him later.”

“Well, Mommy, when is later? Because every time I ask, you always say ‘later,’ and later never comes. I keep waiting and waiting, looking at the clock, and later is taking its own sweet time.”

“You’re too grown,” Chaunci admonished Kobi.

“Why does everyone keep saying that? Can I sleep in your room?”

“Only for tonight. Now go put on your pajamas.”

“I want to sleep in this.”

“Okay, well, I have to go. And you know the rules, no candy and nothing to drink.”

“We have to pray, Mommy,” Kobi said as Chaunci headed toward the door. Kobi kneeled on the floor. “Mommy, come on.”

Chaunci knew she couldn’t refuse, especially since this was their nightly ritual, but she hoped like hell she wouldn’t pop the hooks and eyes on her corset. She started to tell Kobi that in the interest of her girdle, she needed to pray standing up, but since Kobi didn’t know what a girdle was, Chaunci grinned and bore it, while slyly practicing breathing techniques. She kneeled. “Okay Kobi, it’s your turn to lead the prayer.”

“Mommy,” Kobi whispered, “I always forget if I’m supposed to begin by saying Amen.”

“No,” Chaunci whispered back, “you save that for the end. Start with ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’”

“Okay.” She began to pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep—Wait, I forgot to say, ‘Hi, God, how are you? I hope you’re fine, and I hope You and Jesus had a good day, too—’”

“Kobi, God always has a good day.”

“But we don’t know that, Mommy, and you said it’s rude not to ask people how their day was… Oh, and Anty Dextra said it’s rude to interrupt people when they prayin’, too.”

“Just pray.” Chaunci laughed.

“Okay. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die—Wait, I don’t like that part. I’ma skip it. Dear God, bless my grandma, my pop-pop, Anty Dextra … God, can
you ask my mommy to get me a dog? Oh, and God bless my mommy so that we can get a new husband. No one likes Edmon—”

“Kobi!”

“Sorry.”

“Now finish praying.”

“You think God is asleep, Mommy?”

“No, Kobi.”

“He doesn’t have a bedtime?”

“Finish praying, Kobi.”

“I’m done. Bye, God. Amen.”

They rose from the floor and Kobi hopped into bed. “Goodnight,” Chaunci said. “Good-night and Mommy loves you.”

“I love you too, and you look real fly.” “Don’t I always?” Chaunci started to pose.

“Work it, Mommy!” Kobi screamed as Chaunci closed the door behind her and stepped into the living room, where Dextra was.

“Anty Dextra,” Chaunci snapped, walking into the living room, where her au pair was directing the contestant on
Wheel of Fortune
to buy a vowel.

“Yes, chile,” Dextra said in her thick Trinidadian accent, never once taking her eyes from the TV. “Aiye-yi-yi, but what de hell is dis? Just buy an
A!”
She looked up at Chaunci. “You look beautiful.”

Chaunci sucked in a breath and a smile ran across her lips. “Good-night, Anty.”

Dextra smiled. “Good-night.” She looked back at the TV, and as Chaunci closed the door she heard Dextra solving the puzzle.

T
he glow of the full moon complemented the flashing lights of the paparazzi as the A-list guests—athletes, music moguls, Hollywood stars, and politicians among them—arrived at Evan and Kendu’s sprawling Sag Harbor estate, all the while rocking their vintage masquerade finest.

Nothing said new money like shallow excessiveness. Diamonds, furs, Bentleys, stretch Hummers, Rolls-Royces, Excaliburs, and horse-drawn carriages created a foreground of bling against the waving ocean. This was just one of the many fundraiser play dates for the rich, many of whom had their own charitable foundations.

The live jazz band’s rendition of Nina Simone’s “I Put a Spell on You” drifted into the master suite, where the hosting couple dressed silently. Evan could tell by the look on Kendu’s face that being here with her was difficult for him. She felt as if she desperately had to find a way to regain control over the relationship, to make him love her more than she loved him.

“Kendu?”

“Evan,” he sighed wearily.

She swallowed. “I just want you to know—that—Aiyanna may need a spinal tap.”