Bad Girls Finish First (6 page)

6

“C
hristopher, you may as well get it over with. Call her.” Genie held Christopher's cell phone out to him. “Maybe she'll have time to make other plans.”

“Other plans? She's got no one to make other plans with. My mother stays shut up in her condo. The only time she gets out, other than when I'm in town, is when she goes to church.”

It was Friday afternoon and Christopher and Genie were on their way to Houston to attend a baby shower. Genie, who had helped the expectant parents coordinate a full schedule of events for their out-of-town guests, had been looking forward to the weekend for months. When they got to Houston they'd have dinner at the young couple's new home. The shower on Saturday was going to be at the husband's parents' country club. Christopher barely knew the couple, but he insisted on attending the coed shower with Genie.

Genie reminded him of it. “If you didn't want your mother to spend this weekend alone, you should've made plans with her, not me.”

“Nah, girl, this is your weekend. And don't act like you've got an attitude. You know you want me with you.” He playfully pinched her arm. “Besides, if you think I'm letting you go solo around all those single Houston men, you're crazy.”

Genie slapped his hand away, “Single men aren't interested in going to showers!”

“Wrong. Wherever there are single women, if men can get into the mix, they're there.” Christopher grinned and said, “Shows how much you know about men.”

Christopher's real reason for going to Houston with Genie was that he didn't want to be with Grace. His mother lived for his visits; she reminded Christopher of a sad, old dog waiting for its owner to come home. He'd seen her two weekends in a row and her bleakness nearly suffocated him.

“Make the call,” Genie said.

“All right.”

Genie dialed the number and put the earpiece to Christopher's ear.

“Hey, Mom. What are you doing?”

Grace sighed. “Nothing. Sounds like you're on the road already. What time are you getting here?”

“That's why I'm calling, Mom. I don't think I'm going to be able to make it this weekend.”

“But you promised.” Grace's voice hovered between disappointment and resignation. She was aware that being with her was something short of a good time.

“I know, Mom, and I'm really, really sorry.” Christopher darted his eyes at Genie, then said, “Genie's hosting a baby shower for some friends and I promised to help her out. I got the dates mixed up and now I'm stuck. I'm sorry.” Christopher dodged Genie's punches as he laid out his lie. “We're on our way to Houston and probably won't leave there until Saturday afternoon.”

“Well.” Grace sighed again. “I'd hoped you'd come for the whole weekend, but if you can't get here until Saturday afternoon, that'll be okay.”

“But Dad's sponsoring a town hall meeting Saturday night. Remember, I told you about it? He's going to need my help.”

“Right.” Grace spoke so softly that Christopher had to strain to hear her. Guilt beat at his temples, but he held firm. He'd told a partial truth about getting his dates confused—if he had things to do all over again, Christopher wouldn't have spent two consecutive weekends with Grace. Now she wanted three weekends in a row? He couldn't take it. He wouldn't do it.

Grace forced herself to sound cheerful. “I understand, Chris. You and Genie have a good time in Houston. I'll see you next weekend.”

Next weekend? Shit.
“Okay, Mom. Next weekend.”

 

 

“Here,” Genie said as she handed Christopher a small plate of pasta and chicken. “I noticed you didn't eat much at dinner. Thought you'd like this.” She took a seat beside him on the backyard deck of their friends' home.

“Thanks,” he said. Christopher took the plate but didn't touch the food.

“I looked around for you inside.” She gave a little laugh. “People are all over the place, even in Kent and Jaime's bedroom. I thought maybe you were taking a tour.”

“Nah,” Christopher looked up toward the second-story window. He could see the other guests milling around in the game room. “I'm sure it's a nice place but, nah.”

Genie picked up his fork and speared a piece of chicken. “They're getting ready to play charades,” Genie said between bites. “I don't think the men are too into it, though. Charlie and Mitch already sneaked into the other room and turned on ESPN.”

“Oh, yeah,” Christopher commented in a distant voice.

Genie slapped a mosquito that landed on her thigh. A minute later she used Christopher's napkin to wipe the perspiration from her neck.

“It's hot out here, Genie. You should go back inside.”

“I'm okay.” Genie said. She hesitated, then asked, “Thinking about your mother?”

Genie had never seen Christopher look so sad. “I'm supposed to be able to have my own life, Genie. I'm not her husband, I'm not responsible for making her happy all the time.”

“I hear you.”

“My fucking dumb-ass dad. How could he just leave her like that? To treat a woman who's been nothing but good to you the way my dad treated my mom, I'll never understand it.” He motioned toward his chest with both hands. “Then when I get ready to have some fun, I can't even enjoy myself for feeling guilty. It's not fair!”

“I know,” Genie said. “And I know that despite their shortcomings, you love both your parents with all your heart.”

Christopher nodded and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Chris?”

“Huh?” He didn't look at her.

“If we leave here right after breakfast tomorrow, we can get to Dallas in time to take your mom to lunch and we'll still make it back to Austin in time for the rally.”

“Really?” Sometimes Christopher couldn't believe his luck, landing a girl as good as Genie. “But what about the shower tomorrow? Jamie's going to be hurt if we leave.”

“Jamie's my girl. She'll understand.” Genie reached out her hand to Chris. “Come on, let's go inside.”

7

W
hen Michael walked into the room, Raven could tell from the look on his face that the meeting with the
Austin American-Stateman
's editorial board hadn't gone as planned. Acceptance rejuvenated Michael. He was at his best, attractive in every way, when he won a key endorsement, or when he pressed his way through a crowd that loved him. But rejection beat Michael up three times as much as acceptance restored him. His meeting with the editorial board must have been brutal, because Michael's normally youthful face looked haggard. Raven knew politics aged a man, would turn his hair white at warp speed, but she thought that happened after the man got into office. If Michael kept having bad days, Raven would have to start calling him “grandpa” behind closed doors, instead of “naughty boy.”

She asked anyway. “How was it?”

Michael stopped in the middle of the room. He threw his keys on the coffee table—not a good idea, considering that it was glass—and said, “It was all right.”

“Really?” Raven said. “Why don't I fix you a drink while you tell me about it.”

Raven poured them each a glass of scotch, straight up, and squeezed onto the love seat with Michael. She rubbed the back of his neck as he talked.

“It started out fine. I know all of them; hell, I can't count the number of times I've met with the members of that board, as a group, or individually, for lunch or what not. So I felt pretty comfortable, know what I mean?” Michael swirled the scotch around in his glass.

“I put on my show, ran through my routine, and the response was good. It was good.” He pounded the air with his fist. “I got tough questions, but they were fair ones, and I didn't have a problem with any of them.” Michael stopped, drank a little. “Then, bam! Out of the blue . . .” He abruptly slammed his glass onto the coffee table.

“Baby, I know you're upset, but if you shatter my table, things will only get worse,” Raven said crossly. “Finish telling me what happened.”

Michael looked to the ceiling and let out a labored breath. “Jerry Minshew is what happened. Guy ought to be working for one of those sleazy tabloids instead of a major daily. He's not interested in real news, all he wants to do is sling mud.”

“Hmm. That's usually left up to the candidates.”

“I know.” Michael's expression said
See what I'm saying?
He shook his head, mentally chastising Jerry Minshew. “Sweeney and I made a deal at the beginning of the race that we'd fight fair. I'm out to whip Sweeney, but I'll be the first to tell anybody he's a decent man. Even if I did find out something dirty about him, I wouldn't use it unless it had something to do with his ability to govern. If Sweeney's not trying to throw dirt on me, then Jerry Minshew has no business doing it either.”

Fighting fair was something Raven and Michael had gone round and round about. She and Dudley wanted to get into the gutter if that's what it took to win the race. But Michael had other ideas. He and Sweeney had a private meeting, just the two of them, and they emerged with a pact to wage a hard-fighting, clean campaign that focused on the issues.

“I don't know what I resent worse,” Michael continued, “the fact that Minshew goes around acting like he's Mr. Black America and then stabs me in the back, or the way he chose to attack me.”

Sometimes it's so easy for Michael to get sidetracked
, Raven thought irritably, and didn't bother to hide her impatience. “I don't even have to know what happened, but I can tell you, the fact that he's the only black man on the board, and that he's the one to come out against you? That's the worst. Publicly he's given blacks the impression that he supports you, but behind closed doors, he does this? The fact that he attacked you at all is unforgivable. How he went about it is beside the point,” she said dismissively.

Michael gripped his glass in anger. “You think that because you didn't hear what Minshew said.”

Seeing his agitation, Raven softened her voice. “Okay. Tell me.”

Michael picked up his glass and drained it. He didn't say anything.

“Michael?” Raven changed positions—she folded her legs beneath her on the love seat and turned her body so that she faced her husband. “It was me, wasn't it? Minshew asked questions about me.”

Michael nodded. “Every other word out of his mouth had to do with you. With your past.”

“What sorts of things did he ask?”

“There was the usual, you know—what you had to do with my divorce from Grace. And then he brought up some shit about your work for the Department of Defense when you lived in Washington DC. Something about a Dr. Vakar. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.”

Dr. Vakar! How the heck did Minshew find out about that? What lies did he hear about me?
Raven's thoughts were all jumbled and her insides were tied in knots.

“Then he asked about Omar Faxton,” Michael added.

“What did you say?” she asked, hoping that her voice sounded matter of fact.

Michael looked embarrassed. “I was caught off guard, didn't know what to say. I threw out some lines about focusing on the issues. I sounded like a fool to my own ears.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.

“Things went downhill from there,” Michael said. “I expected to get the paper's endorsement—I had it in the palm of my hand until Minshew started talking nonsense. The editorial board's got this custom: when they're going to endorse you, they all stand and shake your hand before you leave the room. The head of the board escorts you out. Hell, the head of the board didn't even stand up. I had to walk over to him, shake his hand. Then I saw myself out.”

Michael looked at Raven, worry etched in every line of his face. “Honey?” Pause. “Should I be concerned? Not about the board's endorsement—I'll figure something out—but about you?” He continued in a hesitant voice, “We've never talked about what happened to Omar. What took place between you and him? Did he really come to see you the night he disappeared?”

Raven leaned over and kissed him. “No, Michael. The rumors about Omar and me were nothing but lies. I've got no skeletons. Everything there is to know about me, you already know.”

 

 

Even though Michael had told Raven that he'd blown the chance to get the paper's endorsement, he was still disappointed when he opened the
Austin American-Statesman
the next morning and failed to find, in bold print across the top of the editorial page:
JOSEPH FOR GOVERNOR
.

“At least they didn't endorse Sweeney,” Raven said as she threw the newspaper to the floor. She and Michael were having breakfast. Raven's plate was piled high—three pancakes, bacon, sausage, and two eggs over easy. She slathered butter onto her pancakes and drowned them in syrup. Raven took a bite and closed her eyes. Heaven.

“You don't know what you're missing,” she said to Michael, who hadn't touched his food. “I fixed your favorite breakfast because I knew you'd need cheering up, and you're ignoring it.”

He sat motionless, giving no sign he had heard what she said.

“Don't trip, Michael. Can't you see what the newspaper's doing? They met with Sweeney the day before they met with you, right? And they still haven't issued an endorsement. They're playing coy, waiting for something to happen to tip the scales, let them know which way to go.”

Michael sighed at her optimism. “The majority of the board knows which way to go, it's just that Minshew's so influential and he's determined that I'm not going to get their support. I don't think the paper's ever issued an endorsement that he didn't agree with.”

With one finger Raven absently twisted the ends of her hair. She squinted, her eyes turning into catlike slits. “Okay, we know Minshew is the problem. We've just got to figure out how to get him on our side. Figure out what he wants and give it to him.”

Raven had attended the same events as Jerry Minshew had, but they'd never been introduced. When Raven entered a room, it was natural for men to let their eyes linger on her. Eventually they would turn back to their own wives or pick up their conversations where they'd left off. But there were a few, like Minshew, who never managed to pull themselves away. They ogled her breasts and legs, and couldn't stop, even when Raven looked them in the eye, or Michael tried to stare them down. Their hunger for her was so raw it was ugly. Raven had an idea or two on how to get Minshew to change his mind. She just needed to hear Michael confirm her thoughts.

Michael was still trying to puzzle out the problem. “Minshew and I move in the same circles, we share the same politics; at least I thought we did. Judging how he treated me in the meeting, maybe I'm wrong. For all I know he's one of those neoconservative black houseboys.”

“I don't buy that, Michael. This sounds personal, not political.”

He looked sharply at Raven. “You're right. Even if Minshew disagrees with me on a few things he knows I'd make a better governor than Sweeney. He didn't kill me on the issues. All Minshew was interested in was finding out more about you. I swear the man's obsessed.”

She nodded to herself. Just as she thought. A plan started to unfold in her mind. If Minshew wanted to know what Raven Holloway Joseph was all about, then she was ready to give him the uncut version.

 

 

That night when Raven made her ritual refrigerator raid, she found Dudley and Michael in the same seats they'd been in for the past three nights.

“Another sleepless night, huh? Dudley, you should go home to your wife, and Michael, you need to come to bed with yours.” She winked at Dudley and looked directly at him as she said to her husband, “It's been—what?—three days? I'm missing you.”

“Honey, I'm sorry, it's just that I'm in serious trouble here. David's helping to get votes from black women, but without the newspaper's endorsement I could still lose.” Michael looked so miserable that Dudley thought he might actually cry. Dudley wished for a tear, just one, but Michael braced himself and the moment passed.

Raven returned from the kitchen with a slice of apple pie. She stooped and rubbed Michael's shoulder. “I keep telling you, don't worry about it. Things are going to turn your way. You've got my word.”

Raven and Dudley exchanged a look that Michael didn't notice, and then she headed back to bed.

“Raven's trying to help, but she doesn't understand,” Michael said when he was sure Raven was out of earshot.

“I don't know, Michael, your wife's something else. If she says you'll get a break, I don't doubt it.”

“I'm surprised you value her opinion. What's that you used to say in law school, brains and breasts don't mix? Tell you the truth, I'm shocked that you two get along at all.”

“We do okay.”

 

 

“Too short. Not short enough. Way too much—might kill him.” Raven was in her walk-in closet, going through her manhunting clothes. She slid outfit after outfit along the rack, looking for the perfect bait. She had ensembles suitable for catching men of all persuasions, and she was experienced enough to know that a girl couldn't put on just any sexy little thing, it had to be the
right
sexy little thing. Some men didn't even want a sexily attired woman—they wanted a women dressed like their mother, or like a man.

She thought about Jerry Minshew. A loser like him would definitely want sexy; he'd probably never dated anyone who wasn't as funny-looking as he was. And Minshew was plenty funny in the looks department. He was one of those men who wore his blackness on his sleeve because at first glance he was often mistaken for white. Minshew was very fair-skinned and had gray eyes. The look worked well for some black men, but he wasn't one of them. He'd been partially bald for years, with a horseshoe shaped gap in the middle of his oddly shaped head. One day he up and decided to get hair plugs. Minshew's swollen scalp hadn't completely healed from getting the plugs put in before he started getting the luxurious locks taken out. Journalists are cruel people, and even within that group the folks at the
Austin American-Statesman
were a mean-spirited breed all their own. They made fun of Minshew to his face, behind his back and, although they didn't know it, in Minshew's dreams. Ms. Piggy with a pen, they called him. His scalp wasn't bare anymore, but now it was covered with scars rather than hair. It looked like a dog's chew toy.

Minshew's body was harder to look at than his angry red scalp. He carried about eighty extra pounds on his ordinary frame, and he wore the weight more like a woman than a man. Fat ass. Pregnant, low-slung gut. Enormous saddlebags and spare tires all around. Minshew was a major ugh, a uck, a make-a-woman-throw-up type guy.

“The things we do for love,” Raven muttered under her breath as she rejected another ensemble in her closet. Michael needed the paper's endorsement, and if she had to turn Minshew out to get Michael the nod, well, that's just the way it was. That's why her outfit was so important. “If I choose just the right getup,” she continued talking to herself, “maybe all I'll have to do is let him look at me.” But Raven was a soldier with a strong stomach, and if Minshew needed more than a look and a quick feel, she fully intended to rub her beautiful, bare body against his unfortunate one.

Raven changed course and decided to select her shoes first. Shoes talk to men, scream at them or whisper to them, telling them all sorts of things about women that may or may not be true. She chose a pair of lavender snakeskin Jimmy Choo's with five-inch heels and ankle straps. Once she picked her shoes, the rest was easy. When Raven walked out of the house she had on a sheer black La Perla bustier and matching thong, fishnets, and a little white linen jacket that barely covered her ass.