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Authors: Niobia Bryant

BOOK: Show and Tell
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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Moët
B
ones is late bringing Tiffany back . . . again.
I am sitting in the lobby with my cell phone clutched in my hand, watching our neighbors come and go, watching the sunset and then the darkness fall and still he's a no-show. I have damn near bitten my nails down to the nub. Each time I worry he will use his money and run with her—somewhere I can't find her. I worry that something bad has happened. I just plain worry.
I flip the cell phone open and dial his number—that the court had to make him give me—again. One . . . two . . . three rings. Voice mail.
“Bones, this is Mo . . . again. You're late with Tiffany again and . . . I just want to make sure she's okay so a call to let me know you're running behind would be . . . that would be a big help.” I release a heavy breath. “Bye.”
I have to talk to my lawyer about it. Even though he is fighting to take my daughter away from me for good, I am trying my best to be amicable because that's what is best for Tiffany. I still haven't sued for child support because I have to admit that the bastard always returns her with plenty of new clothes, pampers, and formula to last several babies. Still, he is always late bringing her back and I am afraid that him and his mother will talk shit about me to Tiffany. My child—especially when she's older—doesn't need to be around all that drama.
I try to focus on the files from work on my lap, but every five minutes I'm looking up hoping to see Bone's black-on-black Escalade. It isn't that the stories weren't compelling enough to hold my attention. Each one is its own war story. Abandoned babies. Another child born with HIV and addicted to crack. Another burnt with boiling water by their mother. Kids left home alone. Kids raising themselves while their parents or grandparents chase drugs. Horror story after horror story after horror story. The sad part is my coworkers tell me that what I've seen is only the tip of the iceberg. It only gets worse.
It's funny but my work makes me want to fight even harder for Tiffany. I'm sure Bones loves his daughter and he never has brought her back to me harmed in any way (oh I check her from head to toe because I don't know him and his momma like that) but I have to fight for my daughter.
I am just filling out paperwork for the placement of a set of orphaned twins when my cell phone vibrates beside me. I drop everything to snatch it up but the pounding of my heart slows to see Taquan's number.
I start to send him to voice mail but decide to answer the call instead. “Hi, Taquan.”
“I'm surprised that you answered.”
I hear a car door close and my eyes dart to the glass door. It's not them. “I'm downstairs waiting for Tiffany. Bones is late again . . . of course.”
“If there's anything I can do just let me know,” he offers. “I know we're not going out anymore but I wanted to call and check up on you since you haven't been coming to church as much anymore.”
I drop my head back and wipe my tired eyes with my fingers. He's right I have slacked up from church big time. I haven't stepped away from faith—although it's been tested—I've just gotten lazy with it. Bones usually brings Tiffany back on Saturday nights and I am so happy to have her back that church is the last thing on my mind on Sunday mornings. Trying to do just enough to keep my job, worrying about Tiffany over at Bones'
and
worrying about Bones winning full custody of her has become my obsession.
“Listen, with all the trials and tribulations you're going through this is the time to turn to the Lord and not away from Him.”
He's right.
“Listen, just promise me I will see you and Tiffany in church tomorrow.”
“I promise,” I tell him with honesty just as Bones' Escalade pulls up in front of the building.
“I've done my deacon duty now I am just talking to you as a man and I miss you, Latoya. I wish things between us could have worked out. I want you back in my life,” he tells me in this husky voice that gives me actual goose bumps and causes my nipples to harden into tight buds.
A part of the reason I left this man—this good religious man—alone is because he turns me the hell on. I will corrupt his ass. I will keep right on until I have him naked and hard in my bed.
“I miss you too,” I tell him with honesty. “But—”
“No buts. Just knowing you miss me too is enough for now.”
Bones walks in the building with Tiffany in her carrier while his bodyguards stand outside like he the president or something. Please.
“Maybe we can talk tomorrow after church.”
I lift the files from my lap to sit in the leather club chair beside me. “Okay. See you tomorrow.” I rise and take the carrier from him. Our hands briefly touch and there is none of the spark we used to have.
“Bones, you really could call and let me know you're running late,” I tell him as I sit the carrier on the chair and immediately pull my baby out of it into my arms. She coos as I lay her against my chest and snuggle my face against hers. “Hey you.”
He sits two large shopping bags on the floor next to my feet. “Whatever,” he mutters around the toothpick hanging out his mouth before he turns to leave.
“Bones,” I call behind him.
He stops but he doesn't turn.
Still holding our daughter, I walk over to him. “We both have done things to each other that we should be sorry for. I know I am. We have a daughter to raise and for me she is the most important thing out of all of this. I don't want to go to war with you. I never wanted to keep you out of her life. I never wanted to take you for your money. I never wanted you to get back with me because of her. I just want us to find a way to raise her together.”
He turns and he looks down at me as he pushes his hands into the pockets of his dark denims. “I don't want my daughter raised by the type of manipulative low-down dirty bitch that would lie on a motherfucker about rape. See to me that shows me what type of cluck cluck bitch that you are. So
I am
going to take Tiffany from your no-good ass.”
I swallow back the tears and fears that rise in me as I look up at him. “What happened to the Bones I fell in love with?” I ask him softly. “You wasn't a cold hard angry ass man filled with hate.”
“You never loved me. You loved my dick and my money!” he yells down into my face.
Some of his spit sprays against my cheeks and mouth. “I'm not going to lie down and let you take her. I'm willing to work out joint custody—”
He reaches in his pocket for a big wad of money. “Look, how much I got to pay a greedy bitch like you for my daughter? Ten thousand. Twenty. Fifty. Name your price.”
Disgusted that he thinks he can bribe me to give up my child, I reach up to slap him with my free hand and he catches it in his grasp and holds my wrist so tightly that I cry out. I snatch away from him as Tiffany begins to cry like she can feel the anger, hatred, and tension between her parents. “If I were you I would consider joint—”
Bones throws his hands up in the air. “I ain't got to consider shit.” What did I ever see in this corny motherfucker? (See now I'm cussing.) “Bones, you either can ride with me or I will do any and everything in my power to run you the fuck over,” I tell him fiercely.
“Oh, you threatening me again? What you gone do now, lie and say I hit you or some dumb shit? Man, let me get the fuck away from your crazy ass.”
I offer him joint custody and he throws it in my face. I tried to go the high road but if it's down and dirty that he wants then that's what he's going to get. I have to do what I have to do.
Part Three
“Life is What You Make It”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cristal
Two Weeks Later
“I
f Mohammed's woman won't come to the mountain then I'm bringing the mountain to Mohammed's girl.”
I look up from the book I am reading on creating a business plan to find Alizé looking down at me. She is looking office chic in a linen pantsuit. Her hair is looking fresh with her signature doobie wrap.
I stand up to reach across the receptionist desk to give a quick hug and an air kiss—just the way Carolyn taught me. “You did not have to go to your internship today?” I ask.
“I have to meet with my advisor from school so I left early today and decided to stop by and see you, Miss Stranger.” Alizé gives me a disapproving look. “You know we understand that status and wealth have always been goals of yours but I never thought you would turn your back on your friends . . . or your man.”
“My man?” I ask as I reclaim my seat and look up at her.
“I've been hanging out at the apartment until really late—to give my dad and his fiancée more privacy—and Mohammed's been coming by the apartment before he goes home for the day and he asked what was up with you.”
I turn my head and look out the glass window of the law firm's outer offices. He has been insisting that I end my friendship with Carolyn but everything I want in life is within my grasp and he just wants me to let it all slip through my fingers like sand. I cannot do that. Especially when she has agreed to help finance my idea for an ultra-chic, ultra-exclusive day spa with a price point that is high enough to draw in celebrities but not too high to dissuade real women like me and the girls who want to splurge and feel like celebrities for a day. Carolyn loves the idea and all she wants from me is the details. A business plan.
Maybe it is divine intervention that Alizé, my smart college grad, MBA-student friend is right here before me.
“You are just the person I need to see,” I tell her as I take my notepad and the book I was reading to sit on the counter before her. “Can you help me draw up a business plan?”
Alizé frowns a little as she looks down at my notepad and closes the cover of the book to read the title.
I stand and put my hands on my hips in full fabulous mode as I give her my best smile. “I think the day spa is a good idea. Don't you?”
Alizé's frown deepens. “You mean like Bubbles and Bliss or Serenity—where we already go?” she asks. “One part of a solid business plan is finding a need that is not being met. I think there are enough day spas in New York.”
My chest
was
pumped up with pride but Alizé's words—her disapproval—deflates me right on down. “Why do you have to hate?” I ask as I snatch my things back from her critical view.
Her mouth drops open as she looks down at me. “Cris, are you trippin'?” she asks me in a high-pitched squeal of nothing but pure disbelief.
I look around and thank God we are alone. “I just asked for your help not your damn opinion,” I whisper up to her.
Brrrnnnggg
.
I hold up my hand and pick up the ringing phone. “Lowe, Ingram, and Banks. How may I direct your call?”
The elevator dings and I look up as a teenage delivery man walks through the opening doors with a massive spring bouquet in his hand. I hang up from the call just in time to hear Alizé tell the boy: “Negro, please. You have to be old enough to ride this ride and if I felt like breast-feeding a child, I would have a baby. Boy, you better get your little self up out of my face with a quickness.”
“This little boy will have you hollering and moaning, baby,” he tells her with more teeth than lips.
“Probably from you poking me with that little ass dick,” she shoots back just as calm as she please.
“Little? Shit, it's so big if I pull it out right now it'll cover the sun and make it dark.”
Alizé arched a brow. “Good, do that so your mama can call your young ass on home for your bedtime.”
I reach between them for the clipboard and quickly sign it before these two start swinging. “Thank you, Jamal,” I tell him with a sweet smile.
He shoots Alizé another mean look before he turns to me with every last one of his pearly whites on display. “Nice to come face to face with a nice polite woman of style and grace,” he says with emphasis before he accepts my five dollar tip and walks away with one last glare at Alizé.
She just waves her hand dismissively as I look at the card. I am not surprised to see they are for me. For the last two weeks flowers, expensive chocolates, and other trinkets that a woman loves have been sent to me. I open the card as Alizé eyes me with open curiosity.
“This is for you?” she asks. “This has to be a five-hundred-dollar arrangement.”
Danielle,
I want you in my life. Just ask.
The world is yours without question.
Marc
I smile as the scent of his cologne reaches me.
I met Marc Ellison during that weekend in the Poconos and although I have told the handsome and ultra-wealthy investment banker that I have a man (who was sitting and glaring at us talking from across the room) he has made it his business to woo me with every possible gift a man can give a woman. I have not laid eyes on him since that trip but he has definitely made his interest known. I have no intention of giving in but I have to admit that it feels like good old times to be pampered again. He is definitely a brother on a mission.
“I know damn well you not letting Mohammed spend most of his check on your ass.”
“Who?” I ask, looking up at her as I place the card to my nose and inhale Marc's scent.
“Mohammed. Your boyfriend. The man who loves and adores you. The man you are losing because of your dreams and delusions of fucking grandeur.”
Damn. I forgot all about him.
Alizé puts her tote back on her shoulder and her shades back down over her eyes. “I have to get going so that I'm on time to meet my evaluation . . . but I'm not hating on you for wanting to start a business or to give yourself a better life. Just remember the same people you step on and hurt on your way up are the same ones you have to face on your way down.”
She turns and struts to the elevator. Like she planned it, the door opens and she steps on and turns. “Get your shit together, Cris,” she tells me just before the doors close her off from my view.

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