The Glamorous Life (21 page)

T
he next day around noon, Tricia was awakened by a cleaning lady knocking on the door. She had slept through the night and chalked it up to the fact that she must have passed out. When she opened her eyes, she could not believe what surrounded her—on the walls, on the ceiling, on the mirror, everywhere. There were photos of her that were so horrible, she froze. She finally peeped out the door and told the woman, “Please, my ride is on the way. Just let me stay here for another hour. I promise I will be out. My daughter will pay you extra when she gets here.”

She picked up the phone.

“Bambi, it’s Momma,” she slowly said.

“Hey, Ma, we came looking for you. The bartender told me you went home with one of your drinking partners.”

“No, I had a date, and the date left me for whatever reason. You need to come get me. Now.”

“Ma, I’m on the way. Just tell me where you are.”

She looked on the phone for the address to the hotel as she tried to get the pictures down with her in the compromising positions, but after she tried to pull them from the wall, she realized that they had been glued. Disgusted, fed-up, and angry with herself, with the young dude, and most of all with drinking, she couldn’t get her mind together. She lay back down. As she lay on the bed crying hysterically, flashbacks came to her of the many men she had played, swindled, scammed, or hurt. At that moment she realized that truly what goes around comes around.

T
ricia was more than sixty miles away, and Bambi burned up the road to get to her mother. When Bambi arrived, to her surprise, her mother had a bald head. “Ma, what happened to yo hair?”

“Look, don’t come in here. Wait outside until I am ready.” Bambi pushed her mother aside and forced her way in. She was shocked by what she saw.

“I don’t believe this shit!” she screamed. “Oh my God, I am going to kill this nigga. How could someone be so fucking cruel? Who was it, Ma? Tell me his name!”

Tricia shrugged her shoulders because she didn’t know. She knew she had met him in a club, but she’d never asked his name.

“He gonna get his. Damn!”

Bambi paced the floor as her mother sat crying.

“Baby, I am soooo sorry. It’s all my fault,” Tricia whimpered.

Bambi hugged her mother. “Mommy, you’ve got to stop this drinking. I know you hurting and rightfully so, but Mom, drinking is running away from your problems, not solving them.”

Tricia blew her nose and nodded her head.

“Baby, I promise you, I am going to stop,” she said.

Bambi got up and began peeling the poster-size pictures from the wall. It turned her stomach to see her mother in such compromising positions, looking nothing short of a ten-dollar whore. When she walked in the bathroom, she saw that someone had taken her mother’s mocha-color lipstick and written no harm intended to you, but tell bambi payback’s a bitch!

Bambi then looked at her mother’s forearm and saw a tattoo,
which was something that her mother had always considered disgraceful.

“Mommy, what happened? When did you get that?” she asked.

Tricia had been too busy feeling sorry for herself to notice the large tattoo that covered the majority of her forearm. It was a crown with a heart that read Smooth, my King; Always and Forever.

Nothing could describe Bambi’s anger at the moment. She hoped that karma really did exist and that one day Smooth would get his.

“He only did this to you to get back at me. He’s crazy,” she told her mother.

Tricia looked up at Bambi dumbfounded.

“What do you mean, to get back at you?” she asked.

“Mommy, it’s a long story, and I don’t feel like getting into it.”

Bambi finished getting the rest of the photos down and took her mother home. As she drove, she knew that Smooth would just keep bringing the noise, doing everything he could think of to hurt her. So at that point she said a silent prayer, asking God to take care of Smooth for her.

That day Tricia poured every bottle of wine, beer, and hard liquor right down the drain, and Tricia never had another drink. No rehab, no AA, nothing. She kicked it cold turkey.

CHAPTER 21

A Sucker Is Born Every Day

B
ambi sat in the first-class section of the 757 on her way to Dallas, Texas. As she looked down at the little houses and patches of ground below, she thought how lucky she’d been to get this contract to arrange events for Ted, a young man whom she had met at Tall Daddy’s party. Ted was very connected and was heir to his parents’ Texas Royce dealerships.

On her first night there, Ted took her to a fancy steak restaurant. She walked inside and saw what looked like young rich men and even richer old men.

“Damn, I know for a fact I can find three or four black J. R. Ewings in this place here. Can a bitch be Sue Ellen or something?” she said to herself as she handed her silk jacket to the maitre d’.

After they ordered, Ted escorted Bambi to the ladies’ room. A deep male voice call out her name. “Bambi.”

Who could that be? No one here in Texas knows me.

“Bambi Ferguson? Is that you?” The voice got closer.

Bambi turned around and at first didn’t recognize the attractive guy in the army uniform, decked out with numerous campaign ribbons. She zeroed in on the nametag that read Dames. It was Douglas Dames, the guy who had tortured and bullied her as a youngster.

“Small world, huh?” he said, grinning down at her.

“You got that right.”

“What are you doing in this neck of the woods?” Douglas made conversation as if they were indeed old friends.

Bambi hesitated. “I’m actually here on business, and you?”

“Well, believe it or not, I’m now an army captain, actually a pilot, and I’m stationed at Fort Hood, which is a couple hours from here. I’m leaving in a couple days for Korea, where I’ll be stationed for about three years.” He said this with his chest stuck out in an attitude of undisguised pride.

“Oh, really,” Bambi said. She wanted to cuss him out, but she did not want Ted to see her lose her cool or act unprofessional.

“Bambi, you are so beautiful. You look so good. The years have really been good to you,” Doug said.

I know this; you don’t have to tell me,
she thought, but she said, “Why thank you so much. That means so much coming from you.”

“Listen, let’s keep in touch. I’d love to write you while I’m in Korea. Letters from anyone from back home are always a great pleasure.”

Motherfucka, I know you don’t want black-ass Bambi to write you a letter. Not the girl who is so black that she showed up at night school and was counted absent, let you tell it. Today is your lucky day, because if anyone but Ted was standing right there I would have royally cussed your half-breed ass out. Do you know how much pain and anguish you caused me, how insecure you always made me feel? And you got the nerve to ask me can you write me?

These thoughts raced through her mind, but she only smiled and said, “Oh, okay,” and handed him her business card, and then introduced him to Ted.

“Make sure you write to let me know you had a safe arrival,” she said as she walked off and entered the restroom.

Ted stood outside the door, continuing a conversation with Doug. When Bambi returned, Doug promised to call and returned to the table with his military buddies.

“He seems like a nice fella. He’s a captain, and at such a young age. Very impressive. Wow! He must really be gung ho. He certainly speaks highly of you, Bambi.”

I think I am about to throw up,
she thought.

B
ack in Richmond, Bambi juggled planning all the parties she had contracted there while continuing to work her butt off putting Ted’s birthday party together in Texas. During this time she received several letters from Douglas—letters she made no effort to respond to in any way. One letter stood out and caused her to wonder. It began,

Dear Bambi,

I am not sure if you received any of my letters. I have written you a few over the past two months. I know you are busy and probably have been traveling a lot, but please write me back because I am getting a bit worried not hearing from you.

Yeah right, you wasn’t worried about me when you were teasing me, were you?
she thought as she continued to read the letter.

Anyway, well, things are going great for me. It’s very different here for me. I wish you could come and visit. There is so much shopping for a woman to do. I see some things that I want to ship home—furniture, etc.—but I won’t do that for a while. I usually just go to work and shop at the PX. I like being here because of the extra pay, and there’s really no need in me spending like I would if I was in the States. So basically the money that I am making is just sitting in my account adding up, which is always a good thing.

“Not for long, old buddy!” Bambi said to herself. “Because you reap what you sow!”

At this point she stopped reading his letter. He had given her all the information she needed. She grabbed a pad and pencil and began to write Doug a sweet letter, pouring every ounce of her charm in it. When he received her response, he was overjoyed to hear from her. This started an exchange of letters, pictures, and cards on a regular basis. Bambi put Ruby in charge of souping up the letters after she dictated them to her. Writing was Ruby’s specialty after being in prison for so long, and deception was right up her alley.

Doug’s mother had passed away a few months before he and Bambi had run into each other in Texas, and he was her sole beneficiary. With this money and his pay from the military, he was in a pretty solid financial state. Bambi told him that she knew of some good investments, and he began faithfully sending Bambi money. Soon he had filled out a form that allowed money to be transferred directly to her account on his paydays. When he got paid, Bambi was paid.

It wasn’t long before Douglas was sprung. He lived to receive Bambi’s letter. He told her that all his thoughts were of the two of them together. He even began talking about marriage and
children with her, obtaining a promise from her that she would wait for him to return to the States.

Because of the game she and Ruby were running on him, he was totally taken.

“Girl,” Ruby said with a laugh, “that man can’t eat, breathe, or take a dump without thinking about you.”

Before long Bambi knew she had Douglas eating out of the palm of her hand while at the same time her other hand was deep into his pockets, getting a monthly allowance and all tailor-made clothes and other items that could only be found in Korea.

Doug sent a picture of some wedding rings in a magazine to Bambi, talking marriage and suggesting this was the ring he wanted her to have. Bambi surprised him by purchasing a set of rings. She sent one to him with a note that said yes, as if he’d formally proposed. The plan was that they would marry shortly after he returned to the States.

Shortly after sending him the ring, Bambi sent Doug a picture of a beautiful white house. Along with this she sent a hand-drawn picture of a stick family to symbolize their future family.