Knowing (61 page)

Spice had learned long ago not to react to Sterling’s outlandish, self-destructive behavior. The more she showed she cared, the more her younger child rubbed her nose in her failure as a mother. When the telephone rang, Spice automatically jumped up, spilling her champagne onto her lap, staining her silk dress.

“Hello,” Spice said, secretly glad for the intrusion. While reaching for a handful of tissues to dry her soiled dress, she listened to her head chef explain why he’d called. “What kind of emergency, Travis?” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sterling lighting a cigarette and listening to her every word. “I’ll be right down.” Spice put the receiver down.

“I’ve got to go,” was all she said, before quickly leaving the room and her two stunned daughters behind in confused silence.

*    *    *

She knew that I’d been planning this for months, Spice thought, twisting her gold wedding band, which she wore on her middle finger, nervously back and forth. She was positive that Sterling had staged this whole school affair to draw attention to herself. They had played this game many times before. Getting suspended from another school! And drugs? Again? Spice was fed up with Sterling’s second-hand theatrics. She was so angry, she welcomed the excuse to escape — not an unfamiliar feeling, unfortunately.

Spice had tried to teach her daughters that they could be more: more intelligent, more talented, more attractive — one better than anyone, just by being themselves. But somehow the message hadn’t gotten through to Sterling.

When the elevator stopped on the main level, Spice stepped onto the pink and white checkerboard floor of Southern Spice’s kitchen.

She waved to the employees as she made her way toward the head chef’s office.

Just as she entered Travis Foxx’s office, Spice heard a rumbling, rolling noise, then the sound of a file cabinet drawer clicking shut, telling her that Travis was wearing his manager’s hat at the moment. Travis had filled some of the tasks left by David’s death. Lord knows he was no David.

From the moment she sat down, Spice felt his eyes visually undressing her. “What’s the emergency?” she asked.

She caught the snide smile on Travis’s face as he moved from behind the desk, and facing her, rested his buttocks against his desk and leaned forward. He was a carbon copy of Will Smith on
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
, especially the ears. Spice once had slipped and called him “Will,” which had pissed him off.

“If you’d come downstairs with me a moment, I’ll show you.”

They took the elevator to the basement. All the way down, Travis complained about the freezer, which was costing a fortune in repair bills. His immediate bugaboo was with the new compressor system that currently ran their freezer and refrigerator. He’d voiced his concern over the hassles caused by the system last year. The system took up too much room and used double the electricity that a more compact unit would cost. Now they had the bills to back him up.

At Travis’ suggestion Spice peered at the overburdened circuits. She tried to make some sense of what she was looking at. She’d never been able to grasp the necessity for all the wire and tubing that extended off into a zillion directions.

With a sudden movement, Travis was behind her, gently cupping her buttocks.

“Don’t.” Spice checked each breaker inside the circuit box to see if any were in the OFF position. Travis, ignoring her, continued to massage her breasts from behind her.

“Look,” she said, pulling from his embrace, “I made a mistake. It’s over. It can’t happen again.”

She watched his sly smile as he released her.

“You’ve got the most exquisite body that I’ve ever seen. Naked or clothed.”

“I hope this isn’t why you called me away from Mink’s celebration.”

“You don’t give a rat’s ass about that and you know it.”

Travis’ words stung. Was this dump on Spice day?

“Travis, how I love my daughters is none of your damn business. Now if you have no legitimate reason to need me now, I’m out of here.”

After four years of celibacy, Spice had longed for sexual satisfaction without the emotional entanglements. She assumed that a young man could enjoy occasionally bedding an older woman without strings. But after one week of intoxication, she found that it just wasn’t possible; he was too demanding of her time. His lack of discretion as her employee hadn’t helped. Just like today, acting amorous while on the premises was typical of his immature behavior throughout their brief fling. And so she had ended it.

At twenty-six, Travis was an asset to her business. He had the perfect ingredients of good chef management: culinary creativity, menu vision, manpower efficiency, discipline and grievance flair. Combine these attributes with reason and common sense, and Travis was the epitome of a professional chef.

Spice silently chastised herself. She’d allowed Travis to take one too many trips around her mulberry bush. It was time to show him how pussy and power prevailed, and a mere set of balls had to step back when it came to running her business.

Sterling was livid. She poured another glass of champagne and quickly gulped it down before asking Mink, “Can you believe that bitch left us here?”

“Spice is our mother, Sterling. She’s not a bitch. I think you’ve got the two confused.”

“Fuck that. What kind of mother would walk out on her daughters’ party and go to work.”

“I’m sure it was important, Sterling. She’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Bullshit. She didn’t have to leave. Travis knows the business inside and out.”

Mink was silent.

“Tell me, Mink, is there anything more important to her than that fucking restaurant?”

Each minute passed like a chrysalis of eternity as the women silently sipped champagne and picked at the buffet.

“I’ve told Spice all along that I didn’t think I could make it at Crown.” Sterling paused to light a Salem, then blew out a thin veil of smoke between them. “She wouldn’t lis —”

“Hold on, little sister,” Mink said, coughing. “You
can’t
make it. Period.” She fanned the smoke away from her face, and taking a step back, crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Quit making these pitiful excuses. You’re just plain lazy. You’ve never worked a day in your life. All that’s expected from you is to get a degree and you
can’t
even do that.”

Drugs and sex were Sterling’s passion; like fire and water, they were good servants, but ungodly masters. Yet, both had been key to Sterling’s escape from responsibility and reality since age sixteen.

Like all addicts, Sterling felt she could handle drugs and was always in control. Still and all, she would not admit to herself nor anyone else that she was now hooked on Red Rum heroin, murder spelled backwards. For this and many other reasons, she kept repeating the same mistakes she’d been making for years.

“I’m not an overachieving martyr like you. If someone would just let me explain —”

Mink turned away. “It’s cold in here.” She retrieved her purse and moved downstairs to the living room.

Sterling followed a few feet behind her.

“Go on, I’m listening,” Mink said as she moved toward the fireplace and sat down on the hearth. Carefully, she hoisted two logs into the fire, reviving the smell of burning hickory. Warmth quickly filled the cozy room.

As Sterling talked, she took in the finely detailed interior of the room, remembering how Spice had carefully chosen the black suede wall panels that were framed by cream gilded floor and ceiling mouldings. In one fell swoop, her mother had purchased the two nineteenth-century Chinese chairs, a pair of chic ebonized gilded stools and several Chinese porcelain figures. A week later there were matching Chinese cinnabar lacquer baluster-form vases to be placed on top of a midnineteenth-century black lacquer Chinoiserie floral and gilt cabinet. As the girls matured, it became increasingly obvious to both Sterling and Mink that all of Spice’s fussed over “junk” was worth a lot of money. Sterling sometimes wondered if it was such a good thing that Spice and David had made it big. Once she had received a spanking for toying with one of the Ming dynasty vases. Ever since then, she had hated this room.

Nothing’s changed,
Sterling thought. She’d been talking for the past five minutes with no response from her sister. As usual Mink hadn’t been listening. No one ever listened to her. Suddenly bored, she moved to the piano bench and began toying with the keys. In a piece of music, there were separate notes broken up by air. Sterling felt there was a lifetime of stale air between herself and her sister. As she started in on “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Mink startled her with a question.

“You’re forever talking about how painful your relationship is with Spice. What you don’t realize is that the drugs are causing you the pain. Not Spice. Can’t you see that they’re destroying your life?” Mink asked her sister.

“I enjoy drugs the same way you enjoy professional status,” she stated calmly. “Can’t you see what that game is doing to
your
family?” The corner of her lips curled up in a knowing smile.

Mink scowled. “You ain’t doing nothing but burning up brain cells that you’ll never be able to recover.” Mink shook her head. “Why do you put yourself through this? Why do you put Spice through this? Whatever problems you have, drugs aren’t the answer. You’re high right now, aren’t you? You don’t have to answer. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“Can’t you be honest for once. I’m your sister, Sterling, for God’s sake. I’m trying to help.”

“Why don’t
you
try being honest for a change. You hide behind that pilot’s uniform, but underneath you’re a whore just like the rest of us.”

“Where in the hell did you come up with some stupid shit like that?”

Sterling stopped playing and swung around to face Mink, laughing. “And the funny part! What’s really funny is that you’re so jealous of me it’s pathetic!”

“You must be outta your mind, girl,” Mink said, rising.

“The fuck I am. You bring your ass over here and I’ll show you who’s crazy.”

“You don’t know who you’re fucking with, girl.”

“Come on big sista.” Sterling started to laugh again. “Come and get some of this,” she said, rotating her open hand into her chest and bobbing her head forward. Sterling started shadowboxing as she moved toward Mink. She stopped for a moment and said with a smirk on her face, “Oh, by the way, Mink. I have
worked
today. The only kind of work I plan on doing — on my back.” She paused, sneered, then sniffed the air. “I still got dick juice on me from this morning.”

“You lowdown slut —”

“Slut?” She walked towards her. “Who the fuck you callin’ a slut? . . . ol’ bitch-ass trick!”

Sterling screamed as she grabbed Mink’s lapel and swiveled her torso and right arm back in preparation to slap her. Sterling’s open palm was half-way to her sister’s face, when Mink caught her wrist with her right hand, then clutched Sterling’s chin in the crook of her left elbow. She felt Mink’s arm slide down her neck and apply pressure on her throat and larynx, cutting off her air. Sterling struggled, trying to weave her petite body from Mink’s tight grasp, then managed to loop her foot around Mink’s calf and tugged. Surprised by Sterling’s strength, Mink lost her balance and slipped on the thick pile, bringing Sterling down with her.

“Lemmego muthafucka!” Sterling yelled in Mink’s ear as she tried to break free.

Neither would relinquish her tight grip. Struggling for leverage, they moved like serpents, their curved bodies sliding, rolling on top of each other along the black carpeting. Thump! Crash! The girls were clawing and scratching each other, returning blow for blow and tearing the room apart while they fought. Sterling grunted and let out a loud moan just as one of the Ming vases fell from the mantel and cracked. The papier-mâché chairs were knocked on their backs as they tumbled over them without noticing. Mink pushed in Sterling’s face with her one hand and snatched a clump of her gold tresses with the other. “Ouch!” Sterling hollered, trying to shake her hair free from Mink’s grasp.

Scrambling to her knees by the buffet table, Mink tried to pull herself and Sterling to their feet, but before she could, Sterling managed to grab one of the Russian china plates and break it over Mink’s head. Mink winced, but didn’t shout as the plate connected with her skull. Far too much adrenaline was flowing through her system now to feel pain.

Mink’s suede heel caught on the edge of the tablecloth as she tried to stand and an avalanche of gumbo, rice, eggs and meat in warmed chafing dishes came tumbling down.

Layers of rice stuck in Mink’s hair like maggots. Clumps of lobster slid down between her breasts. “I hate you,” shouted Mink as she grabbed a fistful of Sterling’s angora sweater.

Together, they rolled over, and over, through the porcelain shards and food, struggling for position. Finally, Mink managed to get her foot at Sterling’s crotch. She pushed hard, pumping her stockinged heel against Sterling’s pubic bone, until she saw tears forming in her sister’s eyes.

“Now that was some
ho
shit!” Sterling shouted between clenched teeth. She managed to break away from Mink and scrambled to the other side of the room. She snatched a bottle from the top shelf of the bar. Cracking the neck open on the side of the baby grand piano, she wagged the top half of the broken bottle toward Mink as she licked the drop of blood from the side of her mouth with her tongue. “Now you come and get some of this,” she hissed.

“Spice is going to kill you,” Mink said, pointing to the broken glass.

“Fuck her! Fuck you. Fuck all y’all mutherfuckas.” Sterling dropped the broken bottle, turned and started throwing bottles of champagne and cognac at Mink.

Mink ducked and dodged the battery of bottles aimed at her. A bottle hit the toe of Otis’ shoes just as he entered the room.

“Ouch! Dammit, Sterling,” Otis shouted. “What the fuck is going on in here?”

Sterling froze.

“Good God,” Mink said, surveying the destruction of the room.

“Go home, Mink. The party’s over.” He grabbed Sterling’s arm and released the unbroken bottle from her grasp.