Family of Lies (14 page)

I
HAD BEEN FANTASIZING ABOUT
B
O
H
ARPER EVER SINCE
V
ERA SHOWED
me his picture a week ago. I needed a man like him. Last night when she told me that he was moving to San Francisco and would be working for Daddy, I went up to my room and danced a jig.

A couple of nights ago, I was rolling around in a bed at the Garner Motel off of I-80 in Berkeley with Steve Randall, an ex-con that nobody knew I was seeing. It was Bo I was thinking about when I came. And boy did I come! I scratched Steve’s back, bit his cheek, and squeezed him so hard around the waist with my legs, I scared him.

“Damn, baby! I know I’m good, but I ain’t that damn good! You ’bout to kill me,” Steve hollered as he roughly pushed me away. “I can tell you ain’t used to good dick like mine. But since I just got out the joint a few weeks ago, it’s going to take me a little while to get used to a woman’s body again. Don’t spoil it with all that whooping and hollering and scratching and shit.” He let out a disgusted breath as he rubbed the spot on his cheek where I’d bitten him. “And no woman never chewed on my jaw like you just done! If I wanted to get mauled, I’d go to the zoo and climb in a cage with a gorilla.” Steve laughed.

I laughed, too, and slapped Steve on his back. Despite all the scratch marks I’d just decorated his back with, you could hardly see them for all the tattoos he had. There was a huge tattoo of a dragon that covered most of his back. There was another one of a ninja fighter that almost covered one of his arms completely. There was a tattoo of a python on his chest. My grandmother would have never allowed me to get involved with a man like this one—especially if she knew he had spent six years in San Quentin for beating and robbing a woman the same age as her. I knew better than to bring Steve to Daddy’s house. Ha! Daddy would be cordial, but Vera would shit out a black brick.

My love life was so dismal.

But until my luck with men changed, men like Steve would have to do. However, after him I would not date another man with a prison record. I’d dated two and that was two too many.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” I cooed. “It’s been so long since I had some good loving, I just couldn’t help myself.”

“Well, what the hell,” Steve snorted, dismissing me with a sharp wave of his calloused hand. “Uh, listen, baby, I need to borrow a few dollars.”

“Again?” I felt like shit knowing that the real reason he had called me up and asked me to meet him was so he could “borrow” a few dollars—
again.
The sex had probably been an afterthought on his part.

“Will a hundred do?” I asked, reaching for my purse on the nightstand. I always kept my purse close by when I was with Steve. The first night I was with him, I saw him going through my purse when he thought I was asleep. I never mentioned the three hundred dollars he’d stolen from me. I pulled out my wallet and removed five twenties from a wad that contained a little over five hundred bucks in twenties, tens, and fives.

“A thousand would do better,” he snickered, snatching the bills out of my hand. He frowned as he counted the money. Money I’d never get back from him. Then he snatched my wallet, flipped it open, and turned it upside down. “This all you got?”

“It’s all I have on me right now,” I replied.

“Damn!” he complained. He unzipped the change pocket in my wallet and dumped out all the coins and took that too. “Girl, I can’t believe somebody like you goes around with nothing but chump change in her pocketbook. What’s the point of you being rich?”

“Smart rich people don’t walk around with too much cash on them,” I stated. “That way, if they get robbed, the thief won’t get much.”

“Pffft! After that old hag blew the whistle on me, I ain’t trying to rob nobody these days. Shit. And I wouldn’t have to if I had a woman who knew how to take care of her man! What about a cash advance on your credit card?” Steve removed my Visa from my wallet and looked at it like it was the Hope Diamond.

“It’s almost maxed out. I think there’s less than a hundred dollars on it,” I lied. Daddy had given me three credit cards. Each one had a twenty-five-thousand-dollar credit line.

“Look, Sarah, if you want me to stick around and be your man, you have to do a lot better than you been doing. I don’t need no broke-ass woman. And you black women wonder why we brothers hook up with white girls!”

I had planned to stay with Steve for at least another hour. But after his outburst, I suddenly wanted to leave.

I finally realized I was tired of being a sugar mama to the men I dated. It was time for me to get involved with a decent, hardworking man like Bo with the same old-fashioned values my daddy had.

Last night when Daddy had come into my room and told me that Bo was moving to San Francisco shortly after Vera had already told me, I had tried to act nonchalant.

“Bo who?” I had asked, sitting on the side of my bed, blowing on my freshly painted nails. My heart was thumping like mad. I just hoped that Bo looked as handsome in person as he did in that picture.

Daddy sat down next to me and patted my knee. “Vera’s cousin in Houston,” he answered, giving me a suspicious look. “Vera told me she showed you his picture the other evening.”

“Oh, him,” I said, looking up at Daddy, nodding and still blowing on my wet nails as I spoke.

“Don’t you mess with me, girl!” Daddy warned with a stern look that was so weak it wouldn’t have frightened a gnat. “Vera told me how big your eyes got when you looked at that picture. Bo’s a handsome devil, but don’t be disappointed when you see him in person. He was still in his early thirties when that picture was taken.”

I had not thought about that! What if I was getting myself all worked up over an old geezer that probably looked like a lizard by now?

“Oh. I didn’t know that,” I mumbled. Other “what ifs” crowded my mind. What if Bo turned out to be a grumpy old man with a lot of health issues? What if he didn’t even like me? Worse than that, what if he was a meddlesome busybody that caused problems for me? “So, just how old is he now?” I still wanted to know.

“Bo’s forty-seven. And like Vera, he looks at least ten years younger in person. I guess good genes run in that family.” Daddy gave me a playful slap along the side of my head.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Forty-seven was not too old for me. I’d been in love with movie stars like Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington since I was a preteen, and they were definitely over forty.

“And you can stop playing games with me. Vera also told me how you looked at that picture of Bo with such a hungry eye.”

I giggled, but my face was burning with embarrassment. “Oh, Daddy! I was just playing with Vera. I just acted that way to impress her. I’m doing everything I can think of to get closer to her. Honest to God I am, Daddy.”

“Well, you must be doing a damn good job. Vera seems more relaxed around you than she was when you first came. The bottom line is, she really cares about you.”

“I know, I know,” I said, dipping my head. “She’s been real nice to me lately,” I admitted. That was true. I still listened to her conversations in the kitchen with Cash and Collette through the air duct, and I hadn’t heard her or them talking about me as much as they used to. “So why is this Bo coming out here?”

Daddy groaned. “Poor fellow. He’s recently divorced. And his wife was a pit bull if ever there was one. I agreed with Vera that the man needs a change.” Daddy gave me a pensive look. “I’ve already told Vera that if he doesn’t live up to my expectations, I will not hesitate to fire him and send him on his way. Now I want you to be on your best behavior when he gets here. Be nice to him but don’t act a fool. I know how girls your age can be.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Daddy gave me another stern look, more serious than the one he’d given me a little while ago. “Baby, I told you not to play games with me. I know I don’t spend a whole lot of time with you now because of my work. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, what it was like when your mama was alive. I don’t want to know what kind of men she brought around you and how they treated you. I know you love the boys and all, but you’re not a child any longer. I want you to behave like a mature, intelligent young woman when it comes to men. They’ll have a lot more respect for you if you do. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Uh-huh,” I muttered.

I got real sad and angry just thinking about some of the jackasses my mother used to fool around with. Before she married Joaquin Garcia, my Mexican stepfather—who was also a jackass—she’d had men marching in and out of our apartment like soldiers. There were a few that weren’t so bad, but the ones she kept around the longest were the ones I couldn’t stand. Mama worked a lot of low-paying dead-end jobs, but she always had a lot of money. She was cheap, though. That’s why she refused to move us to a better neighborhood or shop in the high-end stores. Being a cheapskate didn’t keep my mama out of the casinos two or three times a month, but she managed to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I assumed some of the boyfriends were helping her out financially, even though most of them had low-paying dead-end jobs, too, if they had jobs at all. So far, I’d been spending time with some of the same kind of losers.

Well, I was ready to make a major adjustment in my love life. I wanted a good man. If he didn’t have millions of dollars, that was all right. I had enough for both of us. But I didn’t want a man who wanted me because of my money. With the exception of him cheating on me and getting another woman pregnant, I wanted a man just like my daddy.

It was because of Daddy that I felt better about myself than I used to. Before he’d entered my life, no other man had ever made me feel like I was worthwhile. But even the best daddy in the world couldn’t fulfill every need a woman had. Because I had grown up without a positive male figure consistently in my life, I had developed a hole in my heart. And it was the kind that a daddy could not fill no matter how hard he tried.

“I’m sure I’ll marry a man you’ll like, Daddy.”

“I certainly hope so. If you end up with one that makes a fool out of you, it’ll break my heart clean in two. And I would die if I ever found out one hurt you in some way.” Daddy looked so old and sad sitting there, looking around my room. “You’re the most important person in the world to me now.” For a minute, I thought he was going to cry.

“Daddy, you don’t have to worry about me. I wouldn’t stay with a man who hurt me in any way,” I vowed. “I want a man just like you.”

That must have been exactly what he wanted to hear. He smiled and gave me such a loving look, it made my head spin. Then he gave me a big hug.

I
T TOOK A LOT TO MAKE ME CRY.
B
UT WHEN MY DAUGHTER TOLD ME
she wanted a man just like me, I almost did. I had to blink real hard to hold back my tears.

“Uh, Bo will be here tomorrow. I’ve spoken to him by telephone, and he’s anxious to get here and get to work,” I reported.

“You’re going to hire him without interviewing him in person?” Sarah asked. She looked bored now. I guess it had something to do with me bringing up Bo’s age. “Cash told me you do background checks on everybody that works for you. Even the maintenance crew and the security guards.”

“In Bo’s case, I’m going to bypass all of that. I’m just going to take Vera’s word that he’s a good fit for us, and the fact that he has been working for the same company since he finished college. That’s good enough for me. Besides, he’s family. Regardless of all that, I did call up his supervisors at both places he currently works for. Each one gave an excellent reference.”

The plane Bo flew in on was two hours late, and then there was an accident on the freeway involving several cars. Vera and I didn’t get back home until around two the next morning. Sarah was in bed. But, as usual, Cash and Collette were perched on top of stools at the bar with drinks in hand when we entered the living room.

“My man!” Cash leaped off his bar stool and ran to his cousin. They bumped fists and then Cash gave Bo a bear hug. I noticed how awed Bo seemed to be as he looked around the room. “Boy am I glad to see you. Man, you are going to love California.”

Collette didn’t budge from her stool. Bo strolled over to her and gave her a peck on the cheek. “I see you don’t travel with much luggage,” she remarked, looking at the duffel bag in Bo’s hand. “How long are you going to stay?” There was a concerned look on her face.

“Well, I don’t—”

Vera jumped in and answered for Bo. “He’s staying permanently!” she chirped. “Cash, do you mind getting the rest of Bo’s luggage out of the car?”

Cash slipped into his shoes and trotted out the door without hesitation. But Collette didn’t look too happy. Her lips were pressed together so tightly it looked like they had almost disappeared into her mouth. And I didn’t like that at all. For one thing, I had made it possible for this woman to live a very comfortable life. She didn’t have to pay rent or any other household expenses. And she was enjoying other luxuries that most people only dream about. She used my chauffeur much more than Vera and I—even to drive her to the nail shop! I rarely chastised people, but I did when I felt the need. I cleared my throat real loud, and when Collette looked in my direction, I gave her a hot look. Like magic, a smile broke out on her face.

Vera had told me the other day that Collette was worried about Bo being groomed to take over Cash’s job. When Vera told her that Bo was coming in as a senior manager in my main store, she got even more worried. It bothered her that Bo would be making more money than Cash. But she knew not to say anything to me about it. Who else would put up with her? She had dropped out of school in tenth grade. She had been working as a telephone psychic when Cash met her in L.A. when they were both trying to break into show business. And when she got fired from that job, nobody else wanted to hire her. She had thanked me profusely when I hired her to work in one of my stores. It was the smallest of my five locations, so I figured she couldn’t get into too much trouble working there. Despite her many flaws, I liked the girl. I’d eventually transferred her to the main store so she could be closer to Cash. I guess I was a fool when it came to the underdog or people going through a rough time. That was the main reason I had hired Bo.

Bo couldn’t have looked happier if he’d won the lottery. There was a grin on his face that had been present since he walked into the airport baggage claim area. “This sure is a nice house. This living room alone is bigger than the whole house I just moved out of,” he said, looking around. “I can’t thank y’all enough.”

Cash stumbled in with Bo’s two large suitcases and set them on the floor. “Brother man, you ought to see how Vera fixed up the room you’ll be staying in,” Cash said, wiping sweat off his face.

Bo held up his hand. “I really don’t mind staying in a motel until I find a place.” He looked from Vera to me, still grinning like a kid in a candy store. “You folks are doing too much for me too soon.” I admired that he was so modest and humble. It was no wonder Vera was so proud of him.

“Motel my ass! You will do no such thing!” I boomed. “You’re family and we have plenty of room here. We’re glad to have you. Now, I know you had a rough flight and with the time difference, you probably just want to get some rest now.” I gave Bo a quick hug and clapped him on the back. “Any more of that pot roast we had for dinner left?” I asked no one in particular, but I had turned to Collette. She gave me a tight smile and a weak nod. I returned my attention to Bo. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes, I am. But if I don’t get some rest soon, I’m going to fall out,” Bo said, his voice getting noticeably weaker. “Kenneth, you won’t regret giving me this wonderful opportunity. I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Oh, I already know that!” I gave Bo a dismissive wave. “I know a good man when I come across one.”

“Uh, where is that lovely daughter of yours I’ve heard so much about?” His voice sounded mighty strong now.

“She’s in bed,” Collette offered. “She got tired of waiting for you all to get home. She’s really looking forward to meeting you, Bo.”

Bo looked dazed for a few seconds. “Oh! Well, I’m looking forward to meeting her too.”

“Come on, sugar. Let’s get you unpacked,” Vera said. She took Bo by the hand and led him to his room upstairs. Cash followed with the luggage. Collette finally hopped off the bar stool and walked up to me with her arms folded and a frightened look on her face.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You got a problem with Bo being here?”

“I just don’t want him to ruin things for Cash. Cash told me that Bo used to boss him around when they were kids. He would do everything Bo told him to do, including his homework and chores around the house. Bo’s mama was as big a bully as Bo was. That’s the reason Vera’s sisters turned out to be so hostile. They used to spend more time with Bo’s mama than their own. I don’t want Bo to make a fool out of my husband at this stage of his life. He’s already sensitive about being so close to fifty.”

“I wouldn’t worry about Bo making a fool out of Cash. Cash is a strong man. Everything is going to be just fine for everybody. Now you stop worrying about Bo changing things around here. That’s not going to happen as long as I’m alive. All right?”

“All right.” Collette nodded. But the frightened look was still on her face.