Schooled In Lies (11 page)

Later that afternoon, before I headed to lunch with Ms. Flack, I went to the drugstore to pick up a prescription for Mama. It was so crowded I had to wait for almost half an hour. I was in the magazine aisle flipping through the latest issue of People, when I spotted a familiar figure brush past me on their way to the greeting cards. It was Vanessa. I watched her as she perused the birthday cards for men. She was so engrossed she didn’t even notice me. I had a sick feeling I knew who the heifer was picking out a card for. Carl’s birthday was on Sunday. At least it would be if I let him live that long.

“Shouldn’t you be shopping for baby clothes?” I approached her and she jumped.

“It’s not nice to sneak up on a pregnant woman,” she said and turned back to the cards.

“Just like it’s not nice to dump your marital problems with your new husband on the ex-husband you left high and dry,” I remarked casually.

“Last time I looked, Carl was old enough to make his own decisions and if he didn’t want to be bothered with me, he would have told me, which he hasn’t.” She glared at me.

“Carl’s too nice for his own good, which makes it easy for people like you to take advantage of him and—”

“Oh, shut up!” she yelled, cutting me off and causing people to turn and stare at us. “I’ve known Carl for a hell of a lot longer than you have and we’ll always have a special bond whether we’re married or not. He
wants
to be there for me. So, you better get used to it.”

“If you were tending to your
own
man, you wouldn’t have problems to bother
my
man about? And by the way, do you even know who the father of your baby is this time?” I spat out at her, getting loud myself. Vanessa started shaking and her face turned tomato red.

“Bitch!” She took a step closer.

“Skank!” I stepped up to meet her. I knew I couldn’t punch a pregnant woman, but I wasn’t going to run from one, either.

“Ladies!” said a voice behind us. We turned and saw the pharmacist, a short, elderly bull-dog of a man come charging down the aisle. “If you can’t behave any better than this, I’ll have to insist you leave at once.”

“Gladly.” Vanessa tossed the card in her hand on the floor and walked out of the drugstore.

I slunk off and hid in the candy aisle until Mama’s prescription was ready.

Ms. Flack was almost fifteen minutes late for lunch. When she finally arrived, she didn’t look any happier than she had earlier that morning, and looked uncharacteristically dishelved.

“You okay?” I asked as she slid into the booth. I was disappointed to see that she’d brought a different purse with her than the one she had earlier, which meant I wouldn’t get a chance to snoop through it and find the other half of the letter.

“Fine,” she assured me, picking up the menu and glancing at it before tossing it back down on the table when our server approached to take our orders. We both ordered tuna melts and fries.

I told her about the other accidents I, Cherisse, Gerald, and Audrey had had. I also told her about the message wrapped rock that had been thrown through my window and the message left on Audrey’s voice mail. As I talked, I could see the color drain from her face. When I finished, she looked at me and burst into tears.

I instinctively grabbed her hand. “What’s wrong?”

She reached inside her purse, pulled out a piece of paper, and slid it across the table at me. I got excited because I assumed it was the other half of the letter from the Department of Corrections. It wasn’t. On the paper was a message made up of large irregular letters cut from a magazine. It said, “You Will Pay For What You Did.”

Chapter Eight

“WHERE DID YOU GET this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice down. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. I handed her my napkin and she blew her nose before replying.

“Because I’ve been having problems with a group of tenth grade girls. Everyday I’ve had one of these kids in my office because of fighting. I just thought it was one of my summer school warrior princesses who’d left it to harass someone they’d been in a fight with. I just gave them all a warning and never gave it a second thought.”

“Someone is targeting the reunion committee for some reason. I’ve already reported what happened to me to the police this morning. You all need to talk to them, too. It’s the only way they’ll take it seriously enough to look into it.”

“I can call another emergency meeting and have someone from the police department there to talk to us all,” she suggested. I agreed and she said she’d schedule a meeting for the next night.

Our food arrived and we ate silently. She didn’t seem to be nearly as upset as she had earlier but there were things that were still bothering me. Why did she hold onto the note when she thought it was no big deal and who did she know who was getting out of prison soon?

After two excruciating hours of looking at Dr. Petra Garvey’s pointy shoulder blades every time she turned to write on the board, I went to the store and got a roasted chicken, garlic mashed potatoes from the deli, and some fresh asparagus from the produce section. I called Carl on the way home to invite him over for dinner and makeup sex. He didn’t answer his phone. I left a message and went home, got everything ready, and even put on a little black dress and heels.

Carl didn’t call back. So, I called him again. There was still no answer. Only this time, the phone went straight to voice mail, indicating that he was either talking to someone else and not bothering to answer my calls or the phone was turned off. Of course I was imagining all kinds of scenarios, all of them involving Vanessa Brumfield-Carver, and none of them platonic. An hour later, with still no call from Carl, I decided two could play this game. I tossed the now dried out chicken in the trash, called Morris Rollins and asked if he wanted to meet at Estelle’s for a late dinner, touched up my perfume, and headed out.

“So, what’d he do?” Rollins asked halfway through dinner. Up until that point we’d been having a great time laughing, talking, and flirting. It certainly never occurred to me that he’d think my calling him out of the blue to have dinner was anything out of the ordinary. My ego told me he’d jump at the chance to spend time with me. No questions asked. As usual, my ego was wrong.

“Hmm? What do mean,” I asked after swallowing a mouthful of Fettuccini Alfredo. He laughed his full-bodied laugh while I continued to stare at him in faux confusion.

“You know exactly what I mean. You and Carl must have had an argument or he stood you up for a date. Whatever’s going on with the two of you, I’m under no illusions that you got all decked out in that sexy little dress just for me,” he concluded dryly.

I didn’t know what to say. I was embarrassed. Instead of trying to convince him otherwise, I filled him in on what had been going on with Carl and Vanessa. He listened intently before commenting.

“I won’t lie and tell you not to worry. He pulled slowly on his goatee. I could tell he was trying to find just the right words to tell me something I didn’t want to hear. “Pregnancy affects men in strange ways. Marriages come and go, but a child is forever and a big commitment between two people. Carl might be realizing that—” His voice trailed off before he could finish but I had sick feeling I knew what he was getting at.

“You mean Vanessa re-marrying probably wasn’t any big deal to Carl because as you’ve just said, marriages come and go, but her having a child with someone else means she’s truly moved on?”

Rollins shook his head yes.

My God. Was that what Carl’s problem was? Had he been secretly hoping he and Vanessa would get back together one day? I’d started dating Carl the week before his divorce from Vanessa had become final. Had he been simply killing time with me until he could find his way back into her life and her getting pregnant ruined his game plan? No. I just refused to believe that was true.

“Sorry, Reverend, I don’t buy it.” I shook my head angrily and tossed my napkin on the table.

“Well then what do you think is going on?” He was looking at me like he felt sorry for me and I wanted to scream.

“Carl isn’t the kind of man who’s going to turn his back on someone in need even if it is his ex-wife. I think Vanessa is using her marital problems to worm her way back into Carl’s life
not
the other way around. I just wish he wasn’t so naive when it came to her,” I concluded huffily. I looked at him and saw that his lips were twitching. What was so damned funny?

“So you are capable of seeing a situation for what it truly is. Logic does somehow manage to prevail in that pretty head of yours.” He laughed a little too condescendingly for my taste. He’d used reverse psychology on me and I’d fallen for it without even realizing what he’d been up to. I felt my face start to burn and my lips went tight with anger. I didn’t speak and instead turned my attention back to my meal.

An awkward silence ensued as we continued eating and I felt bad. I’d lured him to dinner under false pretenses then unloaded my problems on him and he’d just tried to help me. I wasn’t being a very good sport. We looked up from our plates at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” we said in unison then laughed.

After dinner, we ordered the Wednesday dessert special of strawberry shortcake. While we savored the fluffy biscuits dripping in luscious strawberries, covered in clouds of whipped cream, I couldn’t help but notice two women sitting on the opposite side of the restaurant three booths down from us. They were leaning close together whispering. One woman was black, looked to be in her late thirties, and was dressed in jeans and a blue silk blouse and a matching denim blazer. Her hair was curly and held back from her face with a multicolored silk scarf. She looked upset. The other woman’s back was to me. But I could see she was a full-figured blonde white woman in her late twenties. She was dressed in the same black sundress she’d worn when I’d last seen her except this time she’d tried to dress it up with a red fringed shawl. It was Audrey Grant. Whatever they were talking about, it looked pretty intense and I couldn’t help but stare.

“You know them?” Rollins asked, glancing over to see who I was looking at.

“I went to high school with the blonde.” I continued to watch.

Audrey’s companion abruptly stood up, causing Audrey to grab both her hands and try to pull her back down into the booth. They were still whispering angrily and I couldn’t hear what they were saying but could tell by the tone of Audrey’s voice that she was pleading with the woman about something. The woman pulled out of Audrey’s grasp and rushed out of the restaurant.

I excused myself and went over to say hello and to ask if Ms. Flack had contacted her about the emergency reunion committee meeting. It took two hellos and me finally waving my hand in Audrey’s face to get her to acknowledge my presence. She stared up at me with tear-filled eyes.

“Audrey, are you okay? Who was that woman?” I sat down across from her. At the mention of her companion, Audrey looked so startled I thought she might faint.

“I’ve got to get out of here.” She grabbed her purse and stood up so fast she knocked her drink over and it spilled down the front of her dress. “Shit,” she said, sitting back down and trying to sop up the wet mess with a napkin. I tried to help her, but she angrily slapped my hands away.

I looked over at Rollins and saw that he was about to get up and come over but I put up a hand to stop him, fearing Audrey would try and bolt again if he did. Then I remembered what Dennis had told me about her taking an overdose of sleeping pills the summer after we graduated. Was she distraught enough to do something like that again?

She stared at me like I was insane and then it seemed to hit her. She probably realized I knew what she’d done all those years ago. She got up and left and I followed her out the door.

“Dennis told me about the sleeping pills. Please don’t do anything stupid.”